05.15.08
Starting prednisone
I saw the opthalmologist this afternoon. My last eye exam was 7 months ago in October when I had been on immunosuppressants for several months already. The Schirmer’s test showed that my eyes are much drier now than they were in October. At the time, Dr. Hathaway suggested Restasis for my eyes, but I decided at the time that I didn’t need to go that far. Currently, I use artificial tears 3 times a day, but she said that isn’t enough, hence the Restasis recommendation. While my vision is relatively unchanged, there is a lot of inflammation in my left eye. She did a dye test to check the uptake of the dye by my eye and it proved positive.
By the end of these exams, my pupils are very dilated from one of the eye drops used during the tests. So, everything is blurry and bright light is a problem, because my pupils cannot “stop down” (like a camera lens). Add to that the sand-in-the-eye irritation of my eyes from the GvHD dryness and driving home in the afternoon becomes a painful and dangerous endeavor. I avoided the Turnpike and took local roads, but by 3:15 PM, there is a bit of traffic leaving New Brunswickall the way home. I wore my sunglasses and the disposable shades the receptionist gave me afterwards in front of my sunglasses. I still had to drive with my left eye closed, my right eye barely open, and my baseball cap visor down as low as possible. The usual 30-minute drive took me about an hour to get home. Once home, I had to douse my eyes in artificial tears for 20 minutes and lay still.
On my bike rides lately, the wind getting behind my sunglasses and hitting my left eye has been causing quite a bit of pain. I often need to close that eye just to stop the pain. This isn’t ideal while riding a bike, so I need to find better glasses or use goggles. Many cGvHD patients with severe dry eye need goggles just to do anything, often this is conjunction with puntal plugs and other dry-eye-relieving measures. For the longest time I thought I wouldn’t get to that stage, but now I find myself needing to address these problems.
Today, I also started my course of immunosuppression, to tame the cGvHD flare that I’m experiencing, with 70 mg of prednisone. I expect to be on this course for several months, probably until the end of the year. That means I’m at higher risk of infection. Last year, when I flared about six months after my BMT, I was on prednisone and Prograf (FK-506) for six months.
The claim: Acidic foods can alter the body’s pH balance and promote cancer. See Cancer and Acid-Base Balance: Busting the Myth. Also, see what Orac wrote in 2006.
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