Rising Above

It may be premature yet to say this, but I feel like the taper to 20mg of Hydrocortisone (which is the equivalent of 4 mg of prednisone) is a success.

Here's what I did today; grocery store, pharmacy, craft store, made cookies, did a Valentine's craft and will be making dinner.

I've also maintained some semblance of an exercise routine throughout the taper, which is huge (although a good bit of that was me saying F*ck You to the fatigue, adrenal and muscle pain and exercising anyway).

Nor have I been sleeping much as the toddler has been up at night having problems breathing.

Those of you who have been reading a while can understand how good this is. To do all this and not crash is monumental. I am pleased.

On top of that, as of today I am condensing the pills, no more split dosing. We'll see how that goes over.

The eerie thing is that this taper has gone well just like the taper from 5mg to 4mg of prednisone. Odd that this would be consistent. 4 to 3mg of prednisone marked the beginning of the end last time, will it be the same this time around???

I won't find out for a couple of months. The plan is to just park at 20mg of HC until March. Of course I say that now, knowing full well I will start to get impatient sooner as opposed to later. But the smart thing would be to wait, here's hoping I'm as smart as I think I am.

With the HC's shorter half life and the fact that I'm now at a sub-physiologic dose, between the two, this will hopefully give my HPA axis ample time to recover fully.

On the toddler reading front, if anyone cares, I'm just reading the Usborne Phonics Books and asking her to read the words she knows/introducing her to new ones. This approach seems to be working well and the books also have whimsical plots that hold her interest.