Correlation between Chest Xray and symptoms

• By prairieannie
• Posted November 25, 2008 at 10:22 pm
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Prednisone is such a love/hate kind of drug! I remember how awesome it was to feel the great relief I had in the beginning after just a few doses of that crap. I wish I could have reconciled the bad with the good though.. The stuff made me feel like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I was ready to commit myself to an insane assylum with the mood swings, and I ate enough food in the first month to satisfy a pregnant hippopotomus!
At any rate.. a lot of symptoms were relieved, but it took several months to show any improvement on a CT Scan. But eventually it was worth it. I'm down now to a maintenance dose of 5mg/day, but I've been here before and had to go back up.. never ending ups and downs ya know!! I try not to get to over excited about these things!

I hope you see great improvement on the x-rays! I'll keep stuff crossed for ya! :)

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• By gonenatural
• Posted November 26, 2008 at 6:19 am
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Hi Jo,

We all are different and have different lung symptoms. Some have only bad ct scans and x-rays are always fine. I had 1 very bad double lung ct scan, all others and x-rays are fine. My bronc and M.... surgeries came out fine. You can have lung sarc without it showing but by symptoms 3-20%, rare, and difficult to get on paper. I finally did in Oct and have systematic sarc, ug. I knew before I had the dx on paper. Now I live in agony every day/night. I am right now typing to you since in is in my left are just below, at and now spread to above my elbow in the muscle and tissue along the bone.
I refuse to take prednisone ever again. For one thing it is impossible for me to lose the weight and it doesn't work on me. The dr that dx'd me said I would need 160mg a day and would be huge and I am big enough from drugs and bed thank you. Right now I am not on anything due to other issues we are trying to resolve.
Good luck to you and read everything you can about prednisone so you can decide if you want to stay on it.
Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving
Gone Natural

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• By shadowtoonces
• Posted November 26, 2008 at 7:29 am
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We have exactly the same situation. I have sarcoid in the exact area as you and am on prednisone. It has worked wonders, but the side effects have been a living hell with the psych and mood swings and weight gain. All my chest xrays have been clear..no signs of anything. It showed up on the CT scans and then, of course, they did a medianoscopy and found the nodes full of sarcoid. I go in for my 2nd opinion on the 1st and will definately keep everyone updated and share any new info he may know....take care and always praying.......Dawn

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• By jowi
• Posted November 26, 2008 at 1:12 pm
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Thank you all for sharing your experiences. My chest xray showed little change-still lots of infiltrates and adenopathy, yet my symptoms are so much better. The pulmonary dr agreed to continue at 40mg every other day for another month though his inclination was to up the dose of prednsione. He wants to use 60 qod (every other day). I realize these doses are less than what most of you take with a daily dose. He does want to see the infiltrates clear, so we will see what happens next month.

In the mean time I got the book out of the library that was recommended here: Coping with Prednisone by Zukerman and Ingefinger (2007). Will start reading today.

I gained 10 pounds the first month.! I also have binge eating disorder, but this prednisonekind of hunger is way different. Two hours after bfast I feel like I haven't eaten for threee days. lots to deal with.

Thanks for your support!
Jo in No. Cal

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