Prednisone Free Thanksgiving! (as well as important tapering info!)

Happy belated-Thanksgiving to all my Canadian followers!

This year I have a lot to be thankful for, and I had the most amazing Thanksgiving.. especially because I am now officially prednisone free!!!

After 7 attempts, and 18 months of this drug, I am officially no longer dependant on it and it feels great! It was hard, as I’ve probably mentioned more than a few times in my posts, and the attempts that left me feeling weak were discouraging at times. I could have stayed around 5mg for another 6 months, another year… but I was determined. I knew I was too used to this drug helping me function, and although I appreciate all the work it did do, I hated the fact that I felt like my body couldn’t function on its own. How did I do it? I started drinking matcha tea daily and it really helped with my energy(also, I will be completely honest and say coffee also became a close friend) but hey pick your poison right? After I felt I got over the worst part of the taper, I went back to tea again… but I’m really not telling you to drink coffee here, matcha tea on the other hand, YES! So many benefits to this stuff, I’ll probably give it it’s own post at some point.

What I did want to write about was the withdrawal though, because nobody told me I was going to go through it. Previous attempts to taper left me exhausted, sore, moody and spoon-less at times, but not until I alternated between 0mg and 1mg did I experience this withdrawal. I was having bad anxiety attacks, scary depression, headaches, muscle weakness and stomach aches to the point where I was skipping meals… along with other things. Not until I google searched and found an article, then continued to research did I find out that what I was going through was my body trying to produce and regulate its cortisol levels and function on its own and I was experiencing a hard withdrawal. I think its important everyone knows about this… because I didn’t and I was scared… I didn’t know why I felt the way I did. If you experience these things while tapering talk to your doctor, but most importantly, know that it will go settle down and get better! Educating myself about this and getting a scientific understanding of what what happening in my body, was really comforting. The longer your body is on pred, the more dependant it gets, so if you can, take it slow, push through and give your body the chance to kick-in. If you would like to read the article, click here. 

So here I am! So thankful, so free. Since January I have now gone from 6-7 medications a day to 1… that’s right, only one. Plaquenil and I are going to be together for a long time, but I don’t mind.

Thanks to everyone who supported (and put up with) me through this, and who celebrated with me! Let’s hope prednisone and I stay away from each other for a long time, or forever!

ALSO, to top of this amazing week, I spent Thanksgiving in the most amazing fall colours I’ve ever seen with my family and achieved my life dream… I found a moose! Luck seems to be on my side lately.

Much love,

Jules