Lately, it has been a series of ups and downs, not just mentally, but physically as well. As I mentioned before, I had to go off of my Remicade for 3 months due to surgery. 8 weeks before the surgery and 4 weeks after. No methotrexate either. My joints were pretty damn inflamed as a result. This overshadowed the post-op pain, which, I have to say, was not that bad compared to my previous back surgery (which I will detail in a different post). It also made me extremely tired. So by the time my Remicade appointment rolled around, I was definitely ready for the infusion.
When I went in for the infusion, the nurses warned me that I might have a reaction because it had been so long and because they titrate the medicine much faster than before (1 hour vs 3 hours). Well, the infusion went by with no problems and I went home to sleep off the benadryl. Next day I had the usual benadryl hangover but nothing else was different. By Sunday, I was starting to feel a bit funny and on Tuesday I woke up feeling as if I had been on an all night bender. Excruciating headache, nausea, intense joint pain. Couldn't get out of bed. I did some research and found a number of people had experienced delayed reactions to the first infusion after a lengthy break. However, the doctor seemed to think it might have been a virus picked up from a post-infusion compromised immune system. His solution was to call in a
Medrol (methylprednisolone) dose pack. This is a high dose, short course of steroids to be taken over 6 days. After one day I felt like a new person. But three days into the course I became puffy, irritable, and unable to sleep. I replaced one bad reaction for another.
Which is basically what this whole disease management process comes down to: figure out which set of side effects is the least annoying and go with it.
