Date:   3/1/2009 4:41:27 PM ( 16 y ago)
Hits:   2,102
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1366988

If I may pop in...  (and this grew long, ops)

Your Prednisone use stuck out like a huge sore thumb.  1 year?  Mind if I ask what the dosage was??

Reason for asking is... my wife is a liver transplant recipient.  Post surgery, back then, the protocol kept them on Prednisone for quite awhile.  We were dealing with soooo many issues, this was down on the list of smasingly important issues, especially since it was prescribed as part of the post transplant protocol.  17 years later, we have learned, tons.

Let me state quickly that this is her experience and mileage will vary from person to person.   Don't take this as wrot, but as information. 

7-8 years out, she began to develop joint issues.  Long story short, she developed AVN, avascular necrosis.  Corticosteroids, in this case prednisone, had caused a common condition in people who use steroids in many forms, at higher doses, over time, which restricts blood flow to the end of the joints, usually the shoulders and hips.  It also contributes to osteo arthritis.  A bummer, because predisone can create a relief from pain in the same joints.  Fibromylagia, lupus, others, are often misdiagnosed in these conditions.

Result was, she has two total shoulder replacements, two total hip replacements, one ankle fusion, one total knee replacements(we are in a holding pattern on the second knee)...  almost certainly caused by, prednisone use over 3 years. 

So, what to do? 

A homeopath in 1999 gave us a slew of things to-do towards her health, but again, since this condition was not overt at the time, it was placed lower down on the totum pole, and the damage was already in force anyway.  She did give us a simple protocol that had we known years earlier, may, operative word is MAY, have kept this from coming on.  We just did not know.   If you would like, I can post the prevention protocol.  Am asking because this is already a bit long and feel the spirit of this post is "what happened to us..." and this does not mean it is rampant.  But it is a fairly well known condition in those who have the unfortunate planets line up through long term, higher dosage use.  Personally, I would at least look into it... which is why I spun up on it here, seeing your message.   Search for   "AVN prednisone"  for stories.  Also, do you know what your Vitamin D level are?  Hardly anyone does, but, this is an anchor point for all this... not the least of which could be alopecia too...

Let me know if you want to hear, in deference to Paul Harvey, the rest of the story.

tx

PS, don't start dosing up on Vit D.  This is one of the things that really needs to accessed via a blood workup, because this can be overdone as well as the far more typical, deficiency.  

As a further PSS...  my mother in law was admitted to the hospital, ICU.  Two years ago, same situation.  Neck fractures.  My wife, at my more than strong urging, was asking to have her D level checked.  The tending doc drug his feet for almost 3 weeks until my wife, that would be the one with the multiple joint replacements, liver transplant, etc, backed him up against the wall and demanded her levels be checked.  He lied, saying they were fine.  30 mins later he came back, tail way between the legs, and said he checked and her D levels were over the cliff low.  They dosed her with 50,000 iu's of med grade D for several days (do not do this on your own), and in two days, she went from dementia, lethargy, etc, to literally WAKING UP.  Her hair grew like a weed.  Instead of going to a nursing home to expire, she went home and thrived.  She is back however.  One look when I saw her and I said, check her D levels.  The same doc is coming in tomorrow to start, tending.  I will bet a six pack of my fav beverage that her levels are low again, even tho she was dosing at home with over the counter stuff which tends to not get the job done.  Once D levels are low, it is very hard to get them back up.  It is a complex set of things that must happen in the body, and sitting in the sun for 15 minutes 3 times a week, once the level are low, will likely not restore them.  Over the counter self medicating can be dangerous unless one is ultra tuned to what their bodies are doing in this area.  The thyroid is in play in D creation and metabolism.  And so on...  

Again, I do not suggest people fixate on one thing.  D is not the end all deal.  But, I have found it to be far more central to some conditions than we may realize.  It is starting to make its way into advertising, after medical communities have issued reports over the last two to three years, about its importance.  D is for instance highly indicated in breast cancer prevention.  

Blah blah blah.  Oh, two other quips as this is a long suffering post now.  Vitamin D is not a vitamin.  Am sure I would have been, and will still, get pounced on, for some things here.  Also, as a first clue about prednisone, it acts to leech D from the body, which starts a series of crummy conditions.  D is stored in the liver primarily, and other organs.  And so on....  dunno if this will work, but here is a quickie link on D: 

http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/otherendo/vitamind.html

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