Prednisone

[Ricardo]

I am on a trip out to Ohio and I'm getting hit constantly...Too much driving, not enough food and a serious caffeine overdose (Note to self--when your wife is not at the top of her game, do not have her in charge of how long you let the french press steep  )  Ketamine is getting me by but it's only going to last so long.  Trex is barely working and I'm getting to that spot where I know I will have Trex rebounds soon.  I have a script for prednisone that I think I may have to take.  I have never taken it, and what I am really wondering is this--if I take it as prescribed (a total of 12 days) can I do it all again in 2 months?  I have been looking forward to a real vacation this year and I was hoping to take my script then but it looks like my options are turning into an Ohio hospital ER or Prendisone.   BAMF

Luckily, I really am not doing that bad right now...but I can feel it building in that all too familiar way that says pretty soon I am going down hard. 

As I side note, my brain has been spinning with cluster thoughts lately, good ones...As in, I feel like everyday I am figuring more and more out about our Fugged up disease.  Every day I feel like we are moving towards real information that will help us all, I can feel it coming like a freight train. 

Gonna go pop 4 prednisone and hope that in a day and a half this cluster will really subside.  Until then, I'm a ketamine freak.  As another side note, caffeine overdose combined with lots of ketamine is strikingly similar to pretty clean LSD.  All I kept saying is "Why is everything so BEAUTIFUL?!?  The tree's are FIZZING?  Why are my palms pouring sweat like I'm a speed freak?!?  Why can't I stop talking?!?"    Eventually my wife let me in on the fact that she let my extra strong coffee steep for somewhere around 30 minutes instead of 10....

Onward!

-Ricardo

[Bejeeber]

Hey Ricardo - I can tell ya I've done the spaced intervals of pred like that without encountering any issues with effectiveness.

Issues with attacks coming back with a vengeance after the taper, yes, but as common as that unfortunate phenomenon is, it is fortunately not 100% assured that it will occur.

I know a chronic headbanger who recently resorted to a pred burst in a desperate bid to get a break from being hammered. It worked. The huge surprise was that after the taper he still wasn't getting hit. And He's STILL not getting hit several months later (????!!!!). Man that sort of thing is SOOOooo rare, and he had done pred bursts before without lasting results.

Here's hoping you could be the next one in a million who somehow gets lasting relief. For others reading this - beware, the "CH hits return with a vengeance " is a MUCH more common after effect of pred.

Also Ricardo, be aware that flashes of personality changes can absolutely result while on the high dose. For me and some others an uncharacteristic mercurial hot tempered-ness can manifest. Not quite 'roid rage, but a hot button that can be easily pushed, causing you to tell the wife off replete with expletives, then a few seconds later feel perfectly calm, happy go lucky, wondering why the wife is acting so offended.

[Brackeen2]

Agree!!!

[blueballs]

I am going with roid rage. Controlled chaos.

[Ricardo]

I am going with roid rage.

 

Tell me about it...Reefer is my friend

Thanks for the info Jeeb's!  Here's another question for folks...For the people that get hit hard when they stop the roids, is this a gradual thing that hits as you do the taper?  Or does it hit you like a sledgehammer after you stop taking it all together?

Another question--do other folks still get shadows?  (I am)  Definitely using a hell of a lot less ketamine, but still needing it a little, especially in the morning.  Altogether, I think the roids have kept me out of the ER at least.  Definitely apprehensive about the coming week though...Guessing it's gonna be a psychedelic one...I am right on thinking that the roids do not interfere with most peoples busting, right?

Thanks again guys!

-Ricardo

[chrisw]

Ricardo,  In my many, many experiences with pred,  it will stop working after the big doses wear off, like the fifth or sixth day and then the HAs will come back. Personally I get my worst hits at night during sleep, so I will get hit like I was getting hit before I started it.  They dont seem to be any worse than they were before I started the pred though.  The shadows, however seem to be worse on Prednisone, and they kind of change, in a funny way.  Like they radiate down my nose as well as the eye and head area.    This is all in addition to the weight gain, swelling of face and legs, racing heart, and general crappy feeling .  But I have however, many times taken it even sooner than two months apart.  Those five days of vacation or so, are so tempting that the side effects seem worth it at the time.  Good luck. :-*

[Bejeeber]

I am right on thinking that the roids do not interfere with most peoples busting, right?

Sigh, I was hoping someone else might take on this elephant in the busting room. 

I don't have personal experience with busting in close proximity to a pred burst, but I've seen some o' the most credible CH folk warn that pred is a busting blocker that should be detoxed from.  :'( Maybe CHfather will chime in on that issue.

On the more positive side, chrisw's post reminded me that there have been occasions when my CH has simply returned at it's original intensity after a pred taper, so hey maybe that's reasonable to expect. Sorry about all the possibly overdone "returns with a vengeance" alarm bells.  :-?

[Ricardo]

Sorry about all the possibly overdone "returns with a vengeance" alarm bells.

No apologies needed.  I always want to know the worst case scenario, it's the only way to be prepared. 

The Prednisone gave me 2-3 days of only medium strength shadows, then yesterday gave way to a mild but definitely not a shadow CH. (even though I was still on the full dose)

The past week has reminded me of a Hunter Thompson speed binge scene.  I think the only reason I have slept is because of the benzo's I'm popping, even then it feels more like "on and off" then actual sleep.  The bags under my eyes tell me the same story.  I'm like, "WOW!  I feel like I can do anything!"  and my wife is like, "really?  Cause you look like death warmed over"  Then I'm like "YOU CAN ALL BURN IN HELL YOU SNIVELING TWITS!!!!   PRENDISONE IS MY FRIEND!!!!  IT MAKES ME....IT makes me....Wait, what the hell was I talking about?   Oooh that flower is pretty....Is there something heavy I can lift?"

Throw in the usual abortives (caffeine, reefer, and ketamine) and I am the most screwed sideways speed freak you have ever met.  I swear if I had just a little less impulse control I would be in a bathtub of ice cubes wearing a shark fin on my head and muttering about pinkos and communists taking over.   Bad drugs.

So.....I bet this drug has it's place.  Hell if I know what it is.  At least I know now what this junk does to me....and soon I will find out what happens when I stop it.

Can't blame my Doc, I went to him asking for it 

-Ricardo

[chrisw]

Yeah, we have this really long love/hate relationship.  I hate the shit, but I do love the 3-5 night break it will SOMETIMES give me.  BTW, one time I dislocated my husbands shoulder when he asked me to give him a hand getting up from the couch while on pred.  I have superhuman strength and I almost threw him across the room.  He was like "what the hell is wrong with you?"   I kept saying, "Im so sorry,  its the steroids"   Ricardo,  may I ask,  why are you even taking them, I thought you were a buster, and had great results with busting?  I am just curious.

[Ricardo]

Ricardo,  may I ask,  why are you even taking them, I thought you were a buster, and had great results with busting?

I have the best results from busting.  If I do not bust I am completely useless and would probably be on disability.  If I take 9.5 grams of mushy's 3 weekends in a row then 1 week off (and then repeat it all over again and again and again) it keeps them to a low roar, enough that I can treat it with Ketamine.  It ends up being daily ketamine with small breaks.  I take Ketamine most of the day for 9-13 days, then take 5 days off.  Sometimes even all this does not work and I end up needing DMT or Imitrex.  The absolute worst seems to be when I am on vacation.  I end up going through 2 weeks worth of Ketamine, a whole lot of Imitrex, and a whole lot of reefer. 

Thinking that there was actually a drug I could take that would make it so I did not experience headaches for a week AND actually enjoy my vacation without being a ketamine freak was what pulled me to the Prednisone.

As it turns out, the Prednisone made the Ketamine work a lot less effectively.  I do not usually actually take enough that the pain is gone, it just lessens it, relaxes me and makes me not care so much.  Now with the Crystal Meth prescription (prednisone) the relaxing, dreamy part is gone.  It lowers the pain but it does not quite do what I need unless I take a whopper of a dose.  Luckily the speed effect almost completely nullify's the intoxicating part of it.  Unluckily this is going to make one big part of what I wanted to do (save my Ketamine) useless.  Less effective and going through it twice as fast. 

-Ricardo

[Bejeeber]

Well the pred sure does kick your brand of journalism right into the gonzo category, and I have to say it is hyper-engaging.  ;D

This is entirely classic and should be enshrined somewhere ;D:

I think the only reason I have slept is because of the benzo's I'm popping, even then it feels more like "on and off" then actual sleep.  The bags under my eyes tell me the same story.  I'm like, "WOW!  I feel like I can do anything!"  and my wife is like, "really?  Cause you look like death warmed over"  Then I'm like "YOU CAN ALL BURN IN HELL YOU SNIVELING TWITS!!!!   PRENDISONE IS MY FRIEND!!!!  IT MAKES ME....IT makes me....Wait, what the hell was I talking about?   Oooh that flower is pretty....Is there something heavy I can lift?"

Sorry to hear that it ain't working out so great in the CH dept. though. The chronic guy I know who had the recent success with pred? Years back he had pretty much sworn it off after he says he went cuckoo on it, and didn't sleep at all. The crazed insomnia is definitely known to happen to to some people, some of the time.

[chrisw]

yeah, it makes you nuts for sure. 

[Ajax]

LONG time pred user.  Had to go back to it after I stupidly lowered my preventative busts and was reminded why a kip 9-10 makes you want to kill yourself.  I unfortunately took too low a dosage of pred and got the kip 10 love right after the cycle of roids(I once threatened a young couple in a grocery store over the last box of Christmas lights while on 60 mg's...).  I have done 20+ cycles of pred and only had a rebound a few times.  It was not gradual!  Major sledgehammer!  All due to doctor not giving enough pred.  hate the shit, need the shit, would eat shit if it would help...

9.5 grams has me giggling at my desk.  NOT a light dose my friend.  As an aside, can you make tea and store it?

[blueballs]

Off to get the ol' hip x rays. Soon as the VA comes up with approval for it..funny. Hips ? who needs em. Prednisone= septic necrosis. Oh well better than a knifwe in the eye.

;D

:D :Dbb

[Bejeeber]

Hips ? who needs em.

DAM.  I'm afraid all manner of headbangers may be delayed at airport security on their way to the CB convention when their prednisone induced hip replacements send the metal detectors into full tilt (if the hips are being replaced with some sort of titanium or other metal...?)