The last time that I wrote about prednisone it was in the context of… not wanting to take it again due to severe side effects, but then I was presented with the opportunity to single-dose myself at infrequent intervals (no more than two consecutive days) if that was something that I wanted to attempt. Knowing that prednisone has significantly helped with migraine pain and moderately helps out with symptoms of bronchial asthma that are severe enough to warrant consideration of its use, I wanted to give it one more try before I gave up on it. And for awhile, this seemed like something that would work. It allowed the bad side effects of prednisone that I need to avoid to become balanced, or more manageable, while letting me experience some of the effects of prednisone that we wanted to see happen… but that didn’t last forever.

Or for even that long at all. Comparatively speaking it wasn’t even that long.

Even on the lowest possible doses of prednisone not taken every single day but only as needed, I was still getting sick and having side effects bad enough to make the medication intolerable. In spite of lowering the dose and decreasing the frequency, I was still coming down with more frequent opportunistic infections than I should have been, and this is said as it should simultaneously be taken into consideration that I have been taking oral steroids as needed since 2012. I know how important it is to stay clean, to frequently wash your hands, to mask up and not to get too close to people when it can be avoided, and I was expertly juggling these requirements until prednisone became too much for my system to take at any regimen. As far as decreasing migraine pain goes, I can voice these concerns in the context that this may very well actually open the doors for me to be prescribed stronger pain medication. Triptans do not work for the specific type of migraine that I most frequently, almost always suffer from, and Fioricet was only still tolerable when taken with prednisone as needed for the “worst” of those migraines. As far as symptoms of bronchial asthma go, I can just present to urgent care or the emergency room more liberally in lieu of starting the prednisone that… now can not be started because of all of the side effects that it is giving me even at the lowest possible doses. By presenting early enough in an exacerbation, especially to the emergency room, I can be given other medications that do not have these same risks. It may well be that I eventually have to abstain from taking steroids at all. And I mean, they were useful for awhile, so this will suck, especially as time passes.

I got my first nerve block on the left side of my head at the occipital nerve for migraines.

One day I will be able to spell that. Getting back to what I wanted to write about, though…

It seems that these hit and they miss. For some people they work amazingly well and they only need them every four to six months or so. Other people need them like… every two weeks if their insurance approves it, but they help. And for other people, they do not work for a myriad of reasons. Sometimes the nerve gets nicked and that causes problems. Other times, the nerve block intermittently does not work. And then sometimes the nerve block just plain does not work at all. On the worst side of my head, I feel like I am between it intermittently not working and it completely not working. I put myself back on prednisone since that has a history of helping with migraines, particularly migraine clusters, even though that was the last thing I wanted to do… and it made things bearable. I seem to be someone for whom these do not work, although I am going to give them the requisite week to see if things turn around and my migraines become more bearable. If that does not work on either side, I will discuss giving them more often with my pain management clinic to see if that makes them “stick”, and if that does not work, I will ask about excising the nerves. X-rays that I have had done have confirmed that they are the problem, especially the right one.

There are still some things that can be done to help ease my migraines. I am willing to explore all of them.