How to Beat Some of Pred's Side Effects

[julia]

I am trying to take this in bits at a time. confused on dairy.

I do not drink milk.
gave up yogurt. did not eat often but liked it for a quick snack on occasion

Like cheddar and swiss cheese

love sour cream but see that is not good.

how about cream cheese.?

thanks for any input

[elephant]

Love all the stuff you mentioned, but have cut down on most of it.

[Sangye]

Julia, yes dairy can be complicated when trying to balance both Fire (Pitta) and Earth/Water (Kapha). Some types are cooling and some are heating.

Most dairy will increase Earth/Water which creates mucus. Also, excess Kapha causes various tissues to swell and retain water, among them the sinuses. So you could have sinus drainage and/or sinus pain and inflammation. If you already have upper respiratory involvement, be extra careful with dairy.

This chart will help you see how dairy products affect Pitta and Kapha. To lower both Pitta and Kapha, eat foods with arrows pointing down for K and P. Minimize the foods that are aggravating to one or both (eg, hard and soft cheeses).
All Ayurveda :: Diet Planning- Dairy Food Chart

[Sangye]

I should also mention that there are often some discrepancies in Ayurvedic food lists between sources. One might say chicken is heating and another not that much. For the most part everyone agrees on the foods.

[julia]

thank you for the link. I will print it out.

[lawstudent2010]

I remember being on prednisone at two different points in my life. The first time, I pretty much succumbed to its weight gain side effect.

The second time, I was ready for it. I would recommend eating a good diet, lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as well as low fat dairy. When I incorporated these foods into my diet, along with moderate exercise, I was actually able to lose a couple of pounds and keep that weight off for a while (I gained it back, but it was when I was off the medication and in law school studying (it is common for law students to gain at least ten pounds)). It all starts with the right thinking and good lifestyle habits. As much WG may be a random disease, I found that a good lifestyle really helps in managing the disease. Thus, prednisone wouldn't stand much of a chance if you practiced good habits.

[JanW]

Hi, lawstudent -- you sound like a really self-directed and goal oriented person (obviously, you're a law student) and what you say about diet is spot on in terms of what the experts at the VF symposium said. They did also point out, however, that predisone is a 'horrible' drug in the sense that in large groups of patients you see a lot of side effects that really can't be mitigated by changes in lifestyle -- i.e. are out of the patient's control. I've never been on it long enough to experience the weight gain but I do know that my anxiety levels go through the roof within a couple of days of being on it, and there really isn't much that I can do about that. Patients certainly complained about out of control appetite and the docs pretty much acknowledged that this just comes with the territory -- once of the many reasons they want to see people have the shortest course possible on the drug.

[Sangye]

Yes, this is exactly why I chose the title I did for this thread. We can control only some of pred's side effects--mostly the ones that make us feel lousy. We have no control over the damage it's doing to our entire endocrine system, bones, cardiovascular system, etc.... Those effects are purely biochemical.

But the things we can do to control some of pred's side effects also happen to keep us healthier in general, and can only help to control the Wegs, too.

[Sangye]

In another thread I was mentioning how I'd been having a lot of sinus drainage the past few weeks and suspected it might be from the daily orange juice I was drinking to keep my potassium up. I stopped it several days ago and sure enough--the sinus drainage has almost entirely cleared up.

Sinus pain was actually the first thing I resolved for myself using Ayurveda 15 years ago. I had always gotten migraines from the time I was very small, but in my early 20's I started getting sinus headaches, too. No infection or congestion, just pain. I had them for about 10 years. I was otherwise strong and healthy.

At that time, I used to eat oranges everyday, drink OJ, and loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches on wheat bread. I learned that every one of those foods aggravates Kapha, and a classic sign of excess Kapha: sinus problems (pain, infections, congestion, drainage, post-nasal drip, headaches). As soon as I stopped eating those foods on a regular basis, the sinus headaches I'd had for several years resolved permanently.

Having Wegs doesn't change the fact that our bodies are affected by the same principles of balance/ imbalance that affect healthy bodies.

[Lightwarrior]

I have been so happy that i have been maintaing on 15 of pred, Over the last three weeks my body has gone into mass production of kidney stones, which has resulted in three ED trips and two hospital admissions. I can't see my urologist until the 24th (he has been out of country) so I have been dealing with on call docs. Anyway about a week and 1/2 ago I started developing fevers between 99 F and 100.6F every aftenoon, aches, chills and extreme fatique. i was going straight home from work and climbing into bed and going to sleep. i had to go to ED yesterday morning for stone help, fluid, pain control etc and for some reason my brain kicked in and I realized that I was headed for adrenal crisis. Prednisone long term takes over the bodies production of cortisol, so my body going into mass production of stones and passing them, plus the stress of a lithrostripsy, stent placement etc was more than my 15mg of pred could handle. i lucked out and one of the ED docs who likes and uses the protocols I wrote (sepsis, dka, post cardiac therapeutic hypothermia, etc) was on. I ran my theory by him and he litterally sat down and put his head in his hands because he had not picked up on it. He gave me an IV dose of solumedrol, had me increas my pred by 20mg for the next five days. My glucose has been well controlled even on pred and i had a 179 blood glucose and 500 in my urine on presentation to the ED yesterday, another sign since the adrenals play a part in glucose control. I called my rheumy and left him a message about the fevers about a week ago but got no response.

The bullet points of my long story is to know the symptons of adrenal crisis if you are on prednisone and seek interventon if you have any of the sypmtoms, the symptoms starting in the afternoon were classic, I also had nauseau, was more fatigued than normal when waking up in the morning and had chills at night with increased sweating. I am a critical care nurse and would not have missed these symptoms in one of our patients...but I nearly let it go way to far with myself.