Nibbal health update

[sistawendy]

So Her Nibs has been to a rheumatologist who interrogated her, had her chest X-rayed, and put her on prednisone for the next two weeks as another diagnostic. The odds? Strong chance of seronegative rheumatoid arthritis, which is treatable and doesn't cause deformity like garden variety RA. She has localized fibromyalgia as what the doctor called a "fellow traveller". There's a remote chance of some form (lymphatic?) of cancer, but given that all her adult female blood relatives have some sort of autoimmune condition as RA is, it seems pretty unlikely to me. There will be more news as soon as I have some.

Her Nibs is pretty freaked because scary words like "cancer" are being bandied about. Personally, I'm glad we're getting out of this medical suspended animation we've been in for a couple of months.

Comments

[loree.livejournal.com]

Aieee, prednisone! I wanted to strangle datavore daily when he was on it -- when they say 'behavioral side-effects,' they aren't kidding. Hoo boy. How much is she on?

Re:

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Nobody told me about any behavioral side effects. What should I look for? She's on 30 mg./day tapering down to 10 mg./day over the next two weeks.

[loree.livejournal.com]

Oh... Irritability, mood swings, and the tendency to start histrionic screaming fits over the most trivial things. You'd think WWIII was starting in my living room on a daily basis... They claim 'behavioral changes' are among the less common side effects, but everyone I've known who's been on it becomes a bit of a raging psycho hose beast if they're on large doses for long.

Take heart: the effects occur less at lower doses, and it sounds like she's not going to be on a big dose for very long at all. He started around 60mg and tapered off gradually over a year, and his side effect threshold seemed to be around the 20mg mark.

For more info, see http://my.webmd.com/content/article/4046.1741#sideeffects