Who will not notice what is prednisone in the chronic illness community? Prednisone can be such a happy tic tac and a devil's tic tac at the same time. It's the only medication that takes away all the pain once shoot in higher dosages, but also shoots thousands of different side effects to your body.
What is Prednisone?
Before jumping to the hell of this medication, let's first identify what is prednisone? Prednisone is a type of steroids, specifically corticosteroids. This is not the same steroids that you take when you go for a workout and building some muscles, there are different types of steroids, that you may go ahead and search in the internet.
Prednisone also known as corticosteroids is used alone or together with other medication to treat symptoms of inflammation. Prednisone is a very popular medication amongst the autoimmune and chronic diseases patients because it works to treat conditions by reducing the swelling, redness, and even changing the way of the immune system works, that's how powerful prednisone is.
Prednisone can come into tablet forms and IV forms. Dosages of prednisone varies on the health concern of a patient. The doctor will give you specific instruction on how long you will take it, instruct you on how many times with specific dosages per day, and of course, instructions on tapering prednisone.
Prednisone is not a typical medication that you can stop anytime, because of its negative side effects. It has to be properly tapered down.
Why Prednisone is Devil's Tic Tac?
As though this medication is so powerful in helping patients of autoimmune and chronic diseases, it also gives you a hell of a ride because of its unwanted side effects. Please note that I will be telling my personal experience on the side effects of this medication. Please keep in mind that every patients may have different experiences on prednisone. This article is not about telling you what to take or how to medicate. Remember to always consult your managing doctor about your medication. DO NOT SELF MEDICATE.
During my high school year, our pediatrician prescribed me this medication for the early onset of my lupus. She had given me specific instructions on when to taper it, what doses should I take in specific timing of the day.
Back then I do remember that it weakened me. There's this one time that we have a physical activity in our PE class whereas we have to run. I literally don't know what happened, I guessed I passed out for some seconds and fell into my knees to the floor. I also remember that my PE teacher told me not to take the activity at all since I was under prednisone but I insisted, and I ended up in the school clinic.
Later on, in my college years, my kidney flared and I have to once again meet prednisone. This time it took me 6 to 8 months under it. Back then, I don't and wouldn't mind what are the side effects of the medications I am taking.
My nephrologist started me at 60mg of Prednisone. My mom noticed that there's an increased in my appetite. I feel like hungry most of the time, without knowing that it's the side effect of prednisone, with the increased appetite comes in the depressing amount of gained weight. Worse part is also loosing your self confidence by having a moon face. No one can actually identify me whenever going out of the house. I will try to greet people but at the end, some of them will not greet me back because they can't recognized me with my chipmunk look alike face. In addition to these, acne invaded my forehead. Also, prednisone caused me to have increased hair growth, like a mustache. Imagine, I am taking education course back then, and I have to face people because I am on my final year and I am doing an on the job training with that drastic image change. I also remember that I had absent menstrual period the whole time I am taking prednisone. You may have imagine right now how hormonal imbalances has been going on my body back then.
My ride to hell with prednisone happened during 2020. It causes me a lot of problems beside the fact that it really helps in my laboratory results. It caused me to have myopathy which is an extreme weakness of muscles resulting in inability to walk. It decreases my mobility activity. Next to this, an immature cataract comes in, and I have to take other medication to address that side effect. My skin became thinner, and it's now more sensitive that I develop blisters anytime I had a friction with my clothing. I also developed insomnia because of prednisone which later on progressed in a mental issue that affected me psychosocially. Those are the times that my moods will extremely changed, like I will have extreme joy then will go to despair and sorrow. I will find myself getting angry or agitated or annoyed and irate over simple matter that can be easily resolved. It left me with no patience, it made me frightened my own self especially when I am angry. I cannot control myself and my emotions. Now, I am taking antipsychotic medications in order to calm me and of course to continue to live a quality life with the people I love.
Prednisone though a very useful medication for our illnesses, it's also a devil's tic tac because of its impacting side effects. Aside from the side effects I had with it, some patients may develop osteoporosis, and Kaposi's sarcoma a type of cancer, but again, every patients differs. Someone's experience from prednisone maybe is different from another patient. It's always right to consult your doctor for any side effect.
Conclusion
Prednisone is a powerful medication in the community of chronic and autoimmune diseases yet it has impactful side effects that can affect the quality of life of a patient.
What are your experiences with prednisone? Can you write it in the comment section. Thank you for reading our article!
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