need advise

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

I'm . I hardly ever post, try to input occassionally but mostly

listen and absorb the wisdom here. I have RA and have been on the protocol for 4

years now, and taking clindy iv's about every 12 weeks. (5days900mg (DOT) ) I went

back to Dr. Sentef a few months ago and started back on flagyl and diflucan in

addition to the mino and clindy stuff.

I have been going thru my " normal " cycle of getting down just brfore I need

the iv's and unfortunately had to postpone them for 2 weeks, so when I started

them this week I was in pretty rough shape. I've had a lot of pain, little sleep

and saw my iv Dr. so we could consult about my pain medicine. He switched me

from hydrocodone and ultram to pentazocine and told me I could double up on it

til I got better, presumably next week or so.

Here's one of the problems, I didn't tell him I had started the program with

Dr. Sentef again, though he was aware of it the first time. When I saw Dr.

Sentef last year the first time I told him about doing the clindy iv's with Dr.

E and he said if they helped me he didn't have a problem with that, but I didn't

remind him about it when I restarted the program 2 months ago. I'm sitting

around thinking I should be keeping these guys on the same page and wondering if

I'm endangering myself by not having done so already.

Secondly Dr. E asked me if we had ever done prednisone and I said no, that

was one of the drugs I was trying to avoid if possible. He slaps his head and

says thats crazy, we could probably reduce your pain and therefore your meds if

you did this. Then I remembered that last summer I had taken part of a round of

a steroid, (couldn't remember the name naturally) and had an allergic

reaction-terrible red rash, burned like fire- and told him so. He said he would

be surprised if it was prednisone, that usually didn't cause a rash and told me

he wanted me to try this and get some relief. I called the pharmacy when I got

home and they looked it up for me and said it was a steroid in the same family

and might cause the same reaction. I had asked him couldn't I just tough it out

with the pain meds and he said no he wanted me to try it, he really thought I

would be suprised how much it helped and that the side effects for a short dose

were really almost nothing.

I'm sorry this is so long, I just re-read it and feel kinda stupid. My

judgement seems have totally left me. I hardly ever get down but at the moment

I'm tired of being sick and my brain feels like a mud puddle. If anyone can make

sense of this I would appreciate some input. Love you all- and thanks in advance

for even reading all this-