Steroids: The good, the bad, the ugly

It’s 2:25am as I sit down to write this. I’ve been awake since 12:05am and completely unable to go back to sleep. You see, I’ve had an ITP relapse. Something I’ve been afraid of happening for a while now. Since I stay so on top of my blood work (weekly or bi-weekly blood draws), we were able to catch this one before it landed me in the hospital. When we catch it at this stage, my Hematologist always results to steroids. I either get put on a high dose of Prednisone (which I refer to as the devil’s tictacs) or I get put on a high dose of Dexamethasone (which I refer to as the little monsters).  This time around my Hematologist put me on what they call ‘a 4 day Dex pulse’ this is a high amount of dexamethasone, in a short period of time (4 days). It’s been said that Dexamethasone is six times more potent than Prednisone is. Which is why I think we refer back to it. It gets my numbers where they need to be quicker than Prednisone would. Which I don’t fully mind because when I’m on Prednisone I have to be on it for a lengthy period of time. So the quicker, the better for me. 

The good thing about steroids is they suppress your immune system. The reason this is helpful in my case is because my immune system is attacking my platelets. If we can suppress my immune system, it will help me be able to produce and actually keep my platelets because my immune system won’t be at a level where it can attack. It’s been a tried and true method of getting my platelets up and staying up for some time. They are usually fairly fast acting so I don’t have to wait months for my platelets to come up.  

Now I’ll get into the bad and ugly. I always amazes me how something that can be so helpful to our bodies daily function, can also be so miserable. For whatever reason, I seem to what feels like all of the side effects of Dexamethasone. I don’t really get all of them but I do get at least half. It makes life miserable. I typically start with the headache, then the hot flashes (it’s mid-April and I had to turn my AC on) and then the aches and pains start. By day two my body feels like it got hit by a bus, I’m beyond exhausted but can’t sleep, my vision gets extra blurry when I’m on the computer too long, taking them awhile to adjust after, I become agitated quickly and of course the slight nausea that comes if we don’t eat enough before taking those ten little monsters. Even though the pulse is only 4 days the effects can last a couple weeks for me. Talk about the bad and ugly.  

Now I do want to remind people that this doesn’t happen to everyone, this is just my personal experience with this medication that always seems to work for me, just makes me a bit miserable in the meantime. Some people use this medication and have hardly to none of the side effects. It’s all in how our bodies are performing, where our health levels are, what your body can withstand and what it can’t. All of the experiences will vary.  

I will say, that until the day comes where they can find a real cure, it would be nice to have a medication that didn’t cause me all these side effects, while trying to save my body. But we can’t have it all. We must take the good, the bad and the ugly, no matter what, when it comes to our health.  

• Signing out, sleepless little monster from Cali!