vicious cycle

[Guest guest]

I recently boasted that after eight months of Xolair injections I had

tapered my daily prednisone maintenance dose of 20 mg down to 5mg and

was going to do 5mg every other day during March.

took my sick pet hedgehog to the vet on Monday, that sure wrecks havoc

with allergies and sinuses. Wed nite I went to pot luck supper at the

church where there were lots of people. By Friday I was gasping for

air, this morning Sat. my sinus' are full and draining and it's thick

- got an cold or infection coming on. I did six nebulizer treatments

yesterday, so it's time to bump the pred back up to 40. It advances

quickly. I feel raspiness in my throat and tightness in my chest. By

tomorrow I will be in respiratory distress if I don't deal with it now.

I am so hoping that 40 mg will be enough to deal with the asthma. The

vicious cycle I was in before the Xolair was 60 mg and I'd be able to

taper down to 20 - when I tried to taper any lower I'd always have an

asthma exasterbation or catch a cold and that would adversely affect

my asthma.

Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have left my house, but the

discoloration of the mucous tells me it's not asthma but something

else that will need an antibiotic in addition to the increased dose of

prednisone.

I was so happy to be down on the evil candy - color me sad. Maybe

eight months is too soon to try and be off evil candy, at what point

(how many months of injections) did others successfully taper off?