Saturday, December 10, 2011

Steroid Brain Fog and Feeling Downright Dumb

When was the last time your joints felt all loosy-goosy?  If you’ve got rheumatoid arthritis, that’s probably not something which is in your near-term memory bank. 

When was the last time your mind felt all loosy-goosy?  For me that is right about now as I’ve got steroid-mush brain.

Rheumatoid arthritis causes stiffness, swelling, and discomfort.  It can also cause brain fog all on its own.  But this is different.

Due to a recent relapse of my MS, I was given very high doses of steroids by intravenous (IV) infusion, pumping the equivalency of 1000mg of prednisone each day for 4 days.  Yes, a full gram of steroids straight into the vascular system.  Yikes.

If this sounds drastic, it is really.  But it certainly shuts down the inflammatory process in the body.  Not only does it stop my immune system from attacking the lining of my nerves, it also brings down the inflammation caused by my RA.

The result?  I currently do not have a sore joint in my body.  It is very nice.  My joints are flexible and loose.  Whoohoo!  I keep wiggling my toes and swinging my knees just to prove it.

So this sounds wonderful, you say.  There’s got to be a catch.  Well, there is.

Read this post in its entirety:

Steroid Brain Fog: What's Your Experience?

3 comments:

  1. Brought back memories ... years ago Patti's neuro had her trying something called prednisone pulse therapy (I think it was called. 1,000 mg prednisone every other day for one week a month. Except in Patti's case she had the constitution to be able to eat the stuff and could avoid out patient drip visits. No brain fog for Patti she went into hyper drive for a week each month. It was as if she never had MS. We used to joke that if you gave 1000 mg of prednisone to a corpse it would walk.

    No wonder athletes on steroids set records.

    Caregivingly Yours, Patrick

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  2. Oh my yes, everything tasting like a tin can, by day three feeling like 2,000 bees were flying around inside my body. Playing catch with my dog and throwing the ball over hand for the first time in over five years, grabbing my fishing pole and fishing for the first in many years. It lasted for two day. Day 4 of draw down thought I was going out grow out of my skin, by the last day had gained 28 pounds, good thing my skin had no seams or I would have busted out of them. Brain fog hard to stay on track making for Mood swing was all one way angry as the steroids wore off, sadness as all gains made were only temporarily.

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  3. I wonder why my mom's RA Dr won't do IV steroids with her - she loves, loves steroids. She is doing terrible on all the infusions. In fact, she quit taking them. I am going to ask her to talk to her RA Dr. about IV Steroids.

    On the other hand, I will never do IV steroids again unless I'm bedridden and can't move! They made me so crazy I thought I would die of insanity.

    Hope it goes well for you Lisa!

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