Good News!

I know, it's hard to believe, isn't it? Well, I have managed, with the exception of today, to get the dose of Methylprednisolone down to 1 tab a day! I felt so relieved when I woke up yesterday without an increase in inflammation after reducing the dose. Of course, the lower the dose, the better. I also woke up yesterday to an increase in energy. Now that fluctuations in energy and inflammation are coinciding, I am beginning to trust my doctor's opinion on the role of steroids in managing this recurrence of the infection. 

As I may have explained in previous posts, my immune system isn't fighting the infection properly (big surprise!). It's not that my immune system isn't strong enough to fight it; it's that it's reacting too strongly. Basically, it is responding inefficiently to the virus and creating unproductive inflammation. So, instead of using all available resources to reduce the viral load, like it should be doing, my immune system is allocating much of its resources to producing unnecessary inflammation. In my case, it causes Hyperparesthesia, or exceptionally heightened sensitivity to touch. It's much like what happens when my immune system is fighting a bacterial infection, like Lyme, and my joints become incredibly inflammed. For me, and many other patients, when my immune system tries to fight this viral infection, it causes Hyperparesthesia. It can be excruciatingly painful. When it's bad, my skin hurts so badly that clothes, showering, and even lying in bed are all incredibly painful.

That is where steroids come in. My initial concern was that steroids would suppress my immune system. As my doctor explained, that is actually a good thing in this case. My immune system is actually over-reacting to the virus and essentially wasting resources on this unnecessary, unproductive inflammation. That is why he prescribed an anti-viral and steroids to be taken together for roughly 6-8 weeks. The combination will make it more of a fair fight for my immune system. That way, the anti-viral can do its job by reducing the viral load and the Methylprednisolone will manage the inflammatory response. After a while, the virus will be contained and the inflammatory response will go away so I won't need the steroids. 

All in all, it makes sense that I would experience fluctuations of the most classic mono symptom, fatigue, along with fluctuations in inflammation. It is more evidence that my infectious disease specialist is on the right track with this protocol. And, the fact that I'm now able to get by on only 1 tab a day and feel a significant increase in energy hopefully means that I am making progress and getting better! Fingers crossed.