What Is the Next Step AFTER First Round of Prednisone?

Introduction:

Update from being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in April 2012. My first post was “Distressed in Dayton”
Currently as of now on 15 mg of prednisone, 10mg of buspar, and bentyl.

Current Colitis Symptoms:

Symptoms that I currently have not including side effects to the trials of medications are, bloody stools from time to time, insomnia, still some mood swings, exhaustion, headaches,hair loss, tremors, muscle cramps…. and terrible anxiety!

My Story:

When I was first diagnosed I was on sulfinazine,& bentyl. Those meds did nothing for me and the doc who put me on them….. well, to be nice I feel he lost his head up someones butt! Went and seen a new GI doc at the end of May, 2012 who started me on prednisone 40mg to taper by 5 mg every two weeks ( and kept me on the other meds as well). I had every mild and severe side effects to the meds so got to taper after 9 days from the prednisone. The anxiety and the stress was another big factor in this who process since I was working, going to school and clinicals while tryin to figure all of this UC stuff out. UC has changed my life in more ways than I could of thought.

I feel I have kept my distance from people

since my mood would change so frequent

and didn’t want to offend anyone

from the crazy side effect of the meds.

I have always considered myself to be a strong person but this def has shown me different. I am thankful to have my mom helping me through this process. She has IBS so understands some of what I am going through & has been my rock through this. I am currently down to 15mg of prednisone and even though the mood swings aren’t as extreme as they wore before, I feel sensitive to the slightest things and symptoms are coming back! I have an appointment to see my GI doc on Aug 25th! not sure how that will go. With no insurance at the moment, docs dont seem to want to really help. I am most concerned about not being able to get off the prednisone or being put on something else that is more potent thus probably having worse side effects than the prednisone. I am also concerned about this effecting how I think differently about my outcome in life with this disease….. I’ve worked very hard in my program in college and don’t want it to be thrown away because I couldn’t deal with all the things that come with UC. Does anyone else have these concerns? Anyone feel that they don’t speak to as many friend s since their diagnosis? I need something better than buspar for the anxiety but nothing too strong to where I cant function…. anyone have any suggestions? will I ever get back to the person I was before all of this started?

Where I’d like to be in 1 year:

In a year I would like to have graduated from my program ( 9 months left). Off prednisone, in remission, have anxiety under control so I can move my mom and myself out to either SC or NC to enjoy my new career and let her relax since she has done so much for me. I just want my life before UC back!

Colitis Medications:

Sulfinazine, bentyl, prednisone, buspar, xanax, cymbalta, celexa.

Sulfinazine and bentyl didnt seem to do much of anything for me beside make me feel sick to my stomach… still had 15+ bathroom trips a day and couldnt keep fluids in my body.

Prednisone (at 40mg) I felt was the devil….. the side effects were so intense, but after tappering it seemed to help sypmtoms but still with side effects even now at 15mg just not as bad.

Xanax 0.25mg, seemed to help with the anxiety but doc didnt want to keep me on them since they can be addictive so they worked but he didnt want to keep me on them.

Next option was cymbalta…. 5 days of that + the prednisone I felt like I was on my way to the nut house. It did nothing for the pain, anxiety, caused high B/P and seems to bring back UC flares.

Celexa…. Oh celexa how I hated you even more…. I thought cymbalta was bad but celexa was more intense with an even higher B/P of 178/105 resting. I could watch my pulse on my wrist in three different spots, it gave me major depression, made me want no people interaction and gave me a crazy zombie feeling.

Buspar doesnt seem to touch on the anxiety when it is high. Which when I have anxiety it is through the roof so I still get to experience the burning in my neck and pain in my shoulders as well as the temors and fast heart rate.

written by Jessica

submitted in the colitis venting area
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