I’ve given some more thought to it, wondering if I should perhaps curtail my use of prednisone even more so than I have in the past and be extremely cautious when doing things like taking medication in general (doing it on a full stomach, for instance, or with food), but then I literally remember not being able to stop vomiting for three and a half days afraid that I was actually going to have to go to the emergency room because it would not stop and holding down water was a Herculean task that did not always end well. Luckily, all of this stopped just before it got to that point… but I continue to remember the pain that I was in. I realize now that my body may not be able to tolerate prednisone at all, what with these side effects that are not mild. I had a localized Staph infection on my leg that has almost completely gone away now, although some of that may have been due to blind luck because almost anyone else would have put me on IV antibiotics for the… severity of the wound that it left. And then I had an actual stomach infection that was unlike anything that I have ever experienced. I was nauseous. I was also in pain. It incapacitated me. It also frightened me, too.

And I know that I don’t ever want to be in pain like that, or suffer like that, any more.

The common denominator in both of these things was that I was on the “high” dose of prednisone, getting ready to taper down to a slightly lower dose when these things happened. They happened despite my best efforts to make them not happen. Prednisone can also lower the amount of stomach lining that you have, and in a susceptible person (I took NSAIDs with this after having eaten some food, one dose of Ibuprofen followed by a dose of aspirin as soon as I could for a migraine that I happened to be having… I wanted to see what my body’s reaction would be to them, and it did not disappoint in the bad way), that can be bad. In my case, it was bad, alright. And like I’ve already mentioned, it’s not something that I want to go through again.

After doing some research to figure out what was the likeliest culprit, I am actually feeling well enough to consistently consume light meals as long as I do so slowly and they are spaced far apart from each other. I’ve decided to start taking all of my medication with something to eat rather than by itself, because my stomach has made it clear to all involved parties that it can no longer handle being… jostled, or not handled with care. Had this gone on for a few more days I would have had to present to the emergency room not being able to keep anything down, but I am so glad that has gone off the table. As mentioned in the previous post concerning this, I can tolerate pain a lot better than I can tolerate nausea of any kind. Pepto-Bismol became my best friend, and I tried as hard as I could to avoid direct contact with Monster and Bub so as to minimize the risk of transmitting this to them assuming that it could be done. So far, all’s well that ends well!

In addition to avoiding prednisone unless I am actively dying of something, I also need to continue to avoid NSAIDs (aspirin, Ibuprofen), albeit for different reasons. If the lining of my stomach is made thin by anything, that invites infections to settle that I would otherwise not have to be concerned with. I’m not repeating that.

Now that I have been on three different antibiotics, the Staph wound on my leg (well, legs… but only one of them is a major problem, as it’s been much larger than the other) is finally, finally beginning to heal. However, as it heals, a lot of scar tissue is being laid down, which is nowhere near the most comfortable feeling in the world… and there’s the fact that it was deep enough to infiltrate the dermis, which means that nerves in the skin have to grow back. That is nowhere near the most comfortable feeling in the world, either.

So far, I’ve been managing this pain with codeine that my pain management clinic has been prescribing me, but it’s hit and miss as to whether or not it works effectively. Sometimes it does, sometimes it… doesn’t. (And apparently some people can be “low-responders” to codeine and morphine, which I suspect that I am and will be.) When I see them again next week, I’m going to ask if they can put me on something like Tramadol to see if that works better. I don’t need “the big guns” to deal with this as much as I just need something that consistently works to ameliorate pain when I’m doing dressing changes, bathing, or just because. Aspirin and Ibuprofen don’t cut it, and they almost always aggravate my asthma, so even those alternated at max doses are not a viable option. I would be nebulizing most of the day or back on prednisone, and, well…

Prednisone caused this, and I think I need to try to stay off of prednisone for the long haul.