Prednisone Pain

I had a minor slip up last night with my efforts to combat the insatiable appetite prednisone sparks. Prednisone munchies hit me hard just when hubby walked in the door with tortilla chips and salsa. I ended up having 8 chips with salsa before displacing the urge to eat into celery with 2 tbsp. bleu cheese dressing spiked with hot sauce.

I literally could not stop myself. It took an enormous amount of will to NOT gorge.

8 chips doesn't sound like a lot (especially considering hubby ate 1/2 the bag in one sitting) but if you look at the label, the chips are pretty high carb even in small amounts. It's enough to derail my low carb efforts and I do feel bloated today.

I told hubby the bag of chips better be out of the house when I woke up this morning. He took them to work. Thank goodness!

I am on day 2 of no rescue inhaler and I'm feeling really strong today. Except super sore in my ribs and legs. The rib pain is all asthma. As for the legs...well,the other day it seemed like a good idea to do 15 minutes of lower than low impact aerobics. I improvised a cardio kickbox routine and did 20 squats. Piddly little workout. There are 100 year old women who workout harder, I'm sure. So nothing major, but here I am in a lot of pain.

I think the prednisone might have something to do with that--it can interfere with the ability of muscle cells to use calcium which impacts contraction. I've had charley horses in the past with prednisone and remember having to be really careful about how I exercised. Strength training was out and I didn't dare make any sudden moves or else things would spasm. This made the elliptical the ideal workout for me--same motion over and over.

In my opinion, I am way too sore for what I did the other day. I actually shrieked when the toddler went to sit on me today. Very painful. I took Tylenol Pm before bed and was up last night at 3am taking regular Tylenol too. I am about to start alternating doses of Tylenol and Advil (aside from the joy of bringing the toddler home from the hospital, this little pain relief trick was a highlight of giving birth).

So today I'll dial it back a notch and maybe take the dog for a walk. Something gentle. And if I can work up the courage, I'll try to massage the worst of it out of my muscles. It works but it hurts. Similar to the choice between ripping the band aid off fast or slow. Pick your poison.