New Member Here!

[Skempins]

It means both, more likely and more dangerous. Don't take chances. If you feel an infection you need help from a doctor much sooner than you did before Wegener's & immune suppresion drugs.

Infections can now run you down much faster, weakening your entire body to allow other issues a foot in the door. Also, prednisone pumps up your metabolism which masks the effects of infections. You may not "feel" as sick as you are. It seems that most of us here have stories of rushing to the hospital only to find out that we had multiple/serious infections at the same time.

Seven hospitalizations for infections in the first six months. Without the pred I would have known just how bad it was on all seven occasions. I'd rather not see anyone else go thru that learning curve. I have since learned... sniffle = call the doctor.

That's really interesting, and good to know. Thank you. I didn't know that about pred and metabolism.

[Skempins]

Thanks again to everybody for the advice! I do find that my coworkers have been supportive. They've even agreed to sanitize whenever they come to my desk (I'm the supplies person, so often I had people just opening my drawers without asking all the time...). Unfortunately, my Manager hasn't even asked me how I am and she doesn't sanitize, but I do whenever I come in contact with someone.

I'm home sick again today and so I really appreciate the advice. I have another bronchoscopy (no dilatation this time around) coming up. I'm glad I can re-read the messages on here. It helps, so thank you!

I wish you all well both with the diagnosis and with the side effects of your medication.