The Lyme Light

I've been taking 4 methylprednisolone tabs a day for 4 or 5 days now. This seems to be the dose at which the skin pain stays nearly gone. So after several days of very little inflammation, which has helped my heart rate calm down a bit, I thought I should try taking only 3 tabs yesterday. The result...I woke up to skin pain this morning. It's all over my back, neck and chest. It's not quite severe; I would say it's only moderate. But, that estimation is coming from a person on 60mg of morphine a day.

So I guess it's back to 4 tabs a day again. But 4 tabs is a very high dose. Why is it taking such a high dose to keep the inflammation down. This is so frustrating. To look at me, aside from the bags under my eyes that I conceal before anyone sees me and the fact that I mostly just sleep these days, you wouldn't know I was in so much pain. When I say inflammation, you would naturally assume redness and irritation. But there's no outward sign of it. No rash. Nothing. Just invisible, abject pain. 

After several days on 4 tabs, I had a steroid moment last night. After spending a lovely, relaxed afternoon with my friend and her 3 month old baby, suddenly my cheeks were flushed, I was starving, and my mood shifted drastically to sad and angry. I couldn't stop eating. I had an enormous appetite. I ate meals and snacks all evening that were twice the size of my normal. Nothing filled me up; nothing satisfied me. I was also in quite a bit of pain. I'm still experiencing flank pain every so often, sometimes with my regular SI and hip joint pain. The flank pain isn't made better with ice like the joint pain. In fact, ice stings and makes it worse. That's very unusual for me. Ice has been my pain lifeline for a long time now and it's weird to me that it would fail to help. But last night was just straight forward SI joint pain. I tried ice and rest but it soon became intolerable anyway. I ended up taking  a pain pill which gave quite a bit of much needed relief. God, it was a bad night though. All of that was happening at once. I managed what I could with medicine and food and ice and rest and relaxation and on and on. But it all went on for hours and consumed my evening. I know that the steroids were responsible for the flushing, appetite, and mood swing. Those are classic side effects. I've had no appetite lately. It's been days of avoiding meals and snacks, not craving anything, and bad stomach aches when I do eat. I don't know what's causing that quite yet though. So to suddenly have this enormous appetite was strange. 

So I suppose I will try 4 tabs a day for now. This skin pain is unacceptable. The fluid retention remains a mystery for now. It's still happening, still everywhere, still seems to happen regardless of other factors like inflammation or fatigue or salt intake. I'll see my doctor this week and get the results from the kidney and liver function tests. I just want to know, just want to rule things out, figure things out, and move on.