Steroids part 3: 3mg

I have been on the steroids for about two months. I started with 9mg, went down to 6mg about a month ago. That was the worst one so far. Now last week I went down to 3mg. I have been on it for several days, and I will be on it for only a week and then stop. I was meant to lower myself on this earlier, but it's not recommended to lower dose if you have a cold and I ended up having quite bad one. In fact so bad, that I had to go back on the 9mg dose for some days to help my body combat it.

Being on the lower dose, I have noticed a few things again. My acne is now almost gone. I still have a few red spots, but they look like to be healing rather than angry ones they used to be. Also I haven't gotten new ones and I can actually see my proper skin behind them!
I ended up getting quite bad moon face with all this. It just means that my face swell up quite badly looking like the moon man. With every decrease, it has been going down considerably. I still have moon face but it's a lot better now than it was. I can see some contours of my cheeks now!
I feel more tired again. Last time worst lasted about a week. This time it should be easier, since my body is producing more cortisols. I haven't been exhausted without a reason. I get tired, but more manageable tired than the exhaustion. I have had a few instances of needing to sleep half a day, but I put that down as having very aggressive cold. 

I think one of the worst things of this whole experience is that I felt normal, like myself while I was on the highest dose, and that I can barely recognise myself in the mirror. With my face being like a basketball with roundness and with the worst acne I can imagine, it's not easy. You can deal with changes like that better when they happen slowly and you have time to adjust, but with steroids, they happened within one week.
Also my blood sugars are slightly coming down and they are somewhat easier to control. They are still higher and I still need a lot more insulin than I used to, but it's more manageable. I really do hope that when I stop taking them, my face will go back to normal as would my blood sugars. Good thing with all this was that my eye check happened to be over a month after starting steroids, and I did not get any steroid damage to my eyes. It can happen very quickly! It often doesn't go away when stopping. It will slow down and possibly stop getting worse, but too often, it doesn't disappear on it's own.

At least now I know what to expect when they start this again. My doctors seem quite confident I have autoimmune hepatitis, so they will put me back on when my ALT starts going back up after this treatment.

Steroid trial

I am in the middle of my steroid trial. I was given budesonide to see how my liver reacts to it. So far, my inflammation in my liver has gone down considerable amount and my lab work are closest to normal than they have been for a year.

So they started me on steroids about three weeks ago. Budesonide is weird one, because it's not meant to go into the blood stream much. It is meant to fix the intestines and liver. With proper dose, it shouldn't go past liver. If you take too much, or your liver isn't good at metabolising it, it will leach into blood stream. With my case, it has gotten into my blood stream because I am taking massive dose of it.

First day, I took it about midday. Never doing that again! I didn't fall asleep properly until about 4am. Not fun! Especially since I woke up couple of hours later to go to work. Second dose, I took more appropriate time. Steroids are meant to be taken as soon as you wake up. Mine are to be taken 30-60 minutes before breakfast. Second day, I felt almost normal! I couldn't remember last time I felt so good! I had energy, I didn't tire as easily. My blood sugars were out of control, but otherwise I felt good for someone who slept couple of hours.
Since then, my energy levels have gotten better. Weirdly enough, my heart rate and blood pressure have gotten a lot lower. My resting heart rate has come down from 70s to low 60s. Blood pressure has been normal first time since last year. This shouldn't be possible with steroids, but apparently it is with me! My blood sugars are somewhat out of control. I had decided on the first day that I will not worry about how much insulin I'm taking and just increasing them as I need to. It seemed to help not to worry about doubling my doses. It's very scary for a diabetic.
As I have continued to take them, I have noticed other symptoms as well. My acne is back.. I wasn't looking forward to that. My exercise induced asthma is gone. I can really easily exercise now. I hadn't realised how bad it had been. I haven't had an inhaler for a while now since I didn't think I needed it. I am reconsidering that now.. And I still don't sleep too well. I don't need as much sleep as I have few months ago, but I keep waking up during the night.

Now I am starting the scary bit, bringing down the doses. I have been on 9mg which is the highest safe dose for me. Next will be 6mg. I am somewhat worried about my energy levels and weaning off from it. I am more convinced than before, that I have some form of problem with my cortisols. I am hoping that my cortisols have taken this as a holiday and will keep working when I lower my doses. Going from 6mg to 3 should be easier than the first one. My body will already have figured out that it't not getting enough steroids outside and will hopefully compensate.