Back on steroids

Hi everyone,

I was diagnosed in April of 2011 and went on steroids for a few weeks and the seemed to do the trick. My platelet count went back up and maintained. In the last 2 months my count has been up and down though. Yesterday I had the mother of all nose bleeds that lasted 2 and a half hours, it was awful. I was back in the hospital today and my count is down to 26, so Im back on the steroids Does anyone have any tips for how to cope with them? I remember from last time that I had a huge appetite and found it really hard to sleep at night, and Im sure there were loads more!

Thanks

There is a book availible called "Coping with Prednisone, Revised and Updated: (*and Other Cortisone-Related Medicines)" that was suggested to me. I was however not on steroids long enough to get the book, just long enough to suffer the side effects. Maybe that would help?

thanks, may look into getting that book. i already am having trouble sleeping at night and its only been 2 days! the joys haha

When are you taking the steroids? I was told to take it before 8am in order to enable sleeping at night.

I take them at 7.30 in the morning because I read that it helps to take them early on in the day. I may try some hot chocolate before I sleep, see if it helps at all!

Chocolate can contain caffeine and does contains the very closely related compound theobromine. I would try hot milk instead.

The amino acid tryptophan helps many people sleep and can be purchased over the counter and is thought to be the factor in milk and turkey that makes people drowsy. (Works for me)

And then there is always the over the counter drugs like Ambien (didnt work for me so well)

thanks so much for the tips, will try get my hands on these if i cant sleep again tonight

Lauralie, how big a dose of pred are you taking? When I'm on 15 mg or more, I often have to rely on Ambien, which my hema prescribes. That makes me less hyper, anyway.

60 mg a day for another 8 days, then hopefully itl be tapered down