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Thread: Medrol Pack - How long until it works if your pain is inflammatory

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    Default Medrol Pack - How long until it works if your pain is inflammatory

    My doc started me on the standard medrol pack to attempt to see whether or not my ongoing ankle pain is due to any inflammation (PT has been getting it better, but really slowly, and we both decided to at least try a limited course of pred to see if I notice a difference). Of course, he told me that if I felt significantly better by tomorrow, we would know it was working, but how common is it to notice a difference in 24, 36 or 48 hours of the first dosage? I've never been on this for anything except my (misdiagnosed) asthma, so I don't have a clue. He did say that if I'm not at all different by the end of the pack, we need to remain with the 'mechanical problem' theory.

    All of my inflammatory markers are now normal (yeah!).

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    I'm not sure what a medrol pack is? Is it like Solumedrol or Pred?

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    sorry -- oral steroid -- methylprednisolone. It's a step down pack with the most on the first day, and reduce each subsequent day for six days. It's 21 tablets total, 4 mg each.

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    Been on those Medrol packs many times before diagnosis. I noticed within 24 hours, but everyone is different. Is there damage done to the ankle JanW? When was your last x-ray of your ankle?

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    I don't think there was any damage to the ankle. Dx on both MRI and ct scan was unexplained bone edema, which certainly sounds inflammatory to me. On the other hand, as my podiatrist points out, it can also happen with injury. It is possible that from my foot pain I managed to injure my ankle with my gait.

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    Keep us updated on the Medrol pack. Hope it improves! That would be great!

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    Jan, I don't think it's a simple mechanical injury theory at this point. You've been limiting your activity and getting PT. If it were just an injury it should be healed by now.

    When I hear ankle pain in a Weggie my antennae go up. It's such a common symptom and one that seems to be routinely ignored even by the Wegs specialists. Last year Dr Seo attributed my ankle pain to a mild sprain, even though I knew I hadn't injured it. It was a red flag that the Wegs was building. I even wound up hospitalized from it with a diagnosis of severe cellulitis. It became quite swollen, turned wine color and was excruciating. The Wegs flare became apparent 2 months later. All that time my inflammatory markers were totally normal.
    Last edited by Sangye; 08-10-2010 at 11:19 AM.

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    Sangye your" antennae's go up."..another good one. LOL!

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    Well, I hope I'm just putting the wegs dog to sleep rather than having it wake back up on me! Already my ankle feels better though, so I'm thinking we have an answer. His solution if it is inflammatory is to move my mtx up to 20 mg, which is still in the standard dose range, according to the mayo rheumy that spoke at the conference.

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    JanW I will be monitoring how you are getting along with the recovery because my ankle has been in constant pain since the dropped foot almost 2 years ago. I had it xrayed and it showed up normal. I was on 60 pred and cytox and now I'm on 4mg pred and 10mg mtx. There was no significant change in pain between the two meds. I have finaly been so fed up with my docs not doing anything about it that tomorrow I am going to my family doc and request a visit with a podiatrist. I agree with you Sangye, docs realy pay no attention to this problem. I seem to be doing great in my blood work just my anca is high and it is only that one left ankle that is giving me greef. It is because of it that I use a cane in long walks. It swells up sometimes and is so puffed up that it looks like a scotch haggis in a sandal. When I sit or lie down it hurts even more before slowly relaxing. Simetimes it takes an hour before the pain is managable enough for me to go to sleep. Please keep me posted on how you are doing. Was your original xray ok or did you have to have CT and MRI before it showed the bone edema?
    Jolanta

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