Hello all. I'm new to this, so please forgive me. Within a few weeks of finding out we were pregnant, I started having nose bleeds and coughing up blood. It was very little at first, but I still contacted my ENT (I have a history of sinus issues) and we figured it was just a nose bleed. After a month or so, I would cough up large amounts of blood in the morning. By my second trimester, swollen and painful joints, mainly my knees and feet, joined the blood. My OB sent me to a rheumatologist who put me on 10 mg of prednisone, after he insisted I check with my OB, which I did, and ordered a bunch of blood work. The pred helped. When I went back to him he diagnosed me with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. He then started to prescribe a medication and when I mentioned to my mother about the pregnancy, his response was, "Oh, you're pregnant? I can't put you on that." And then he cut back the pred to 7.5 mg. Needless to say, I now drive 40+ minutes to another doctor.
One of the first questions the new doc asked was if I had been coughing up blood. I then moved to 20 mg of pred and had more blood work done and the original work sent to the new doc. He diagnosed me with Wegener's and I was bumped up to 60 mg of pred (break-though pain and blood again) and now imuran. Chest x-ray and chest ct were both fine. I now see my OB, a high-risk doctor, my ENT, my rheumatologist, and I will be seeing a pulmonary specialist in January. My labs apparently came back some better because the pred is being bumped down week by week and the imuran was bumped up.
I really want to be off of prednisone. I have been on it for almost 3.5 months. However, the baby is doing well!!
Thank you for listening! This has all been very overwhelming and stressful.