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View Full Version : Does this seem like alot of meds?



talentx7
05-24-2010, 09:44 AM
My son, Carter just came home from the hospital with a ton of meds. He is taking :
Procrit...1ml (by shot)
Prednisone...60 ml
Pepsid...2.5ml
Ditropan...3.5 ml
He had cytoxin in the hospital.
Does this seem normal. When do they start to tapper off. They put him on a low sodium diet also. Is anyone else? His Creatine went from 5.3 when we entered the hospital. It is now a 2.0. How long does it take to get back to normal, if ever? They didn't say much about that.

elephant
05-24-2010, 09:55 AM
No that is not alot of meds. The procrit helps produce red blood cells to prevent anemia and keep that hemoglobin up. His creatinine is 2.0, normal is aound 1.0, but your kidney doctor will let you know if his creatinine will come down, it depends how much damage occurred in his kidneys secondary to the wegeners disease. It will take a while to get back to normal, it will happen. You have to ask many questions because the doctors don't give much information ( very few). Eventually he will be weaned off the prednisone, pepcid and procrit. Once the wegeners goes in remission.

Sangye
05-24-2010, 12:27 PM
The pepcid is necessary while he's on higher dose of pred, since it causes excessive stomach acid and will cause gastric bleeding if you don't block the acid. Once he gets below about 10mg pred he might be able to stop that. I haven't seen docs use Procrit routinely like that. I've only seen it when the cytoxan is too damaging to the bone marrow and there's no other option-- they have to force the bone marrow to make more blood. Make sure you ask them why they're using each drug, what it does, etc....

Why are they giving him ditropan?

I also suggest keeping him away from sugar and excess fat. Low-fat is not healthy--just don't let him overeat fatty foods. Pred makes you crave sugar, fat and salt and they are very damaging. Beware--pred cravings are INTENSE. He may get pretty angry about you controlling his food.

talentx7
05-24-2010, 12:52 PM
Yes, they gave him ditropan also, but i am not sure what that med does. I thought it was for his bladder spasms after the biopsy. But maybe not. I think the diet is going to be very difficult. Keeping sugar down will be the hardest because I have 4 other children. I took most of the sweets out of the house already, and I am looking for anything else (healthy) but sweet I can replace it with. Any suggestions????

Sangye
05-24-2010, 10:17 PM
Ask around at the health food store and search online. There are lots of books and tips on feeding kids healthy and fulfilling diets without using sugar. The Granola Moms know all the tricks. :)