The 7 Dwarves of Solu-Medrol

Day One on Solu-Medrol.
It is usually on Day Two that I say, to myself or to no one in particular, "No! I cannot take another day. I am skipping Day Three. I don't care!" I don't know, but right about now I am tempted to start yelling No! already and I still have 2 days to go. And then I remember that Days Four, Five, Six and Seven are no walk in the park either, spent still reeling from the steroid effects and then coming off being pumped full of steroids, leaving me with serious weakness, muscle cramping and more.

In its defense, I am partially blaming Solu-Medrol for the craptacular relapse symptoms I am experiencing as well. It has been 10 days and unfortunately they have grown exponentially and while the numbness and such is annoying, it is the nerve pain, arriving like an army to trample all over my body, that has me unable to sleep. Well, that and the heart pounding, elephant-sitting-on-my-chest-feeling and steroid induced restlessness. But I think its mostly the pain right now. Much akin to a blowtorch firing at various body parts for undetermined amounts of time.

So the idea is that the Solu-Medrol will make the Bad Relapse Man go away more quickly and permanently. But while I am still able to make jokes and find the humor in things today...but very soon my body will be inhabited by a series of...well, dwarves.

First the pharmaceutical info:
Oral steroids ake oral corticosteroids (ex:Prednisone or the Medrol Dose Pack) are very powerful anti-inflammatories. What's really cool is unlike certain asthma inhalers, which are steroids that go directly to decrease respiratory inflammation, the oral corticosteroids affect the whole body. They are used in all types of autoimmune and rheumatic diseases, Crohn's disease, they can help treat penumonia and skin diseases as well as some allergic reactions. When you think about it they are pretty incredible drugs. They have a price to pay, including a Very long list of short-term and long-term side effects if used on a frequent basis.
Still, they can treat diseases that nothing else out there can treat, and they can drastically improve quality of life for the patients of such diseases.

I digress from the dwarves...
(To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, Stephen White):
When someone has bad bronchitis or bad allergies or a rash they are often given oral steroids as a method of treatment. Common dosage for these oral drugs ranges from 5mg to 50mg. When an MS patient is being treated for an acute relapse, they are given 1 gram of Solu-Medrol, infused directly into their veins...for 3 days in a row. So grand total: 3 grams. Since I just passed my math class in college, I can tell you that is 20 to 200 times the normal daily amount prescribed. In fact, when I tried the high-dose oral steroids back in Nov, my doc actually had to write out "six hundred milligrams" because too many times a pharmacist has assumed the doctor didn't have his coffee that day and miswrote "600" instead of "60". The point of all this being, even 50mg of steroids makes you irritable and jumpy and nervous. 1000mg into your veins, well, you can use your imagination, because I sincerely hope you never have to experience it firsthand.

This is where the dwarves come into the picture. As all these drugs are being pumped into the MS patient's body, it quickly becomes apparent they he/she has been possessed by all 7 dwarves. Unfortunately, they are not the same 7 dwarves that you might remember from that lovely fairy tale with Snow White. Oh, no. There are some familiar faces such as Grumpy and Dopey. But there is also Angry, Bitchy and Cranky. Sad to say, Happy and Sleepy will make very few and very brief appearances over the 7 days.

If you live with a person undergoing such treatment you quickly learn that in these 7 days the patient will lose most of his/her sense of humor, ability to take anything in stride and everything you do will be wrong, irritating or downright infuriating (Sorry, Chris. You know I really REALLY love you, right??) But it's not the patient's fault! It's those damn dwarves, I tell you!!!

I would sign off saying I am heading to bed, as most normal people would do at such an hour. But I would be lying, knowing that the next few days I will be catching sleep whenever the dwarves and the steroids allow, in snippets here and there. I will make a conscious effort to channel Happy whenever possible. And I will remind myself as often as I can that This Too, Shall Pass. (Thanks always for that one, BBT). And by next week maybe I will feel normal again. Well, not Too normal. I mean, who wants to be "normal", right? ;-)