I'm a Total Junkie

Meaning that I have about a million prescriptions that I take on a daily basis. I like to make jokes about my druggie status - I'm almost always on something with some kind of side effect, I carry around my stash in a little bag (or sometimes bags) everywhere I go, and I'm constantly on the phone fighting with my "dealers" about prices, deliveries, and dosage. When I tried to donate blood once the woman looked at my veins and immediately asked me if I had ever been an IV drug user, to which I (totally obliviously) actually answered yes without thinking. THAT was a fun one to try and explain my way out of, by the way.

Anyway, the point of all this is that as of yesterday the number of drugs in my medicine chest officially went up to a million and one. I added Pulmicort -- the neb version -- which is apparently a corticosteroid similar to prednisone. (See previous posts for my thoughts on prednisone and all its awesomeness.) So now I'm on yet another version of this thing, but I get to neb it this time. It's basically round two, only now it involves more time and takes up more space on my counter. Lovely.

The thing is, I tried it this morning and discovered that, especially when taken right after albuterol, this drug makes me totally shakey and jittery, and it lasts for quite a while after I've finish the neb. Seriously, I was trying to write and finding it difficult because my hands were shaking. It actually bordered on funny: there I was in the law firm and while my brain was perfectly focused I felt like my body was all over the place. I was delibrately trying to steady myself just to keep from spilling my coffee. And yes, I am in fact dumb enough to drink caffeine while already on a steroid rush. Suffice it to say that I think I'll cut the coffee out of tomorrow's routine.

By the way, gotta love the internet. I decided to look up "pulmicort side effects" and found an asthma message board of some kind where mothers were writing in to tell about how their kids had started wetting the bed and chewing their toenails (TOEnails, mind you) since starting on this drug. Hmmm. Maybe I should be thankful I'm just feeling a little ADDish.

I shouldn't complain -- I'm actually pretty excited to see if this helps me keep down my rate of infections and exacerbations. I respond so well to prednisone, despite the side effects, that I'm always really relieved when my doc tells me to go on it again. So this will maybe be a longer term solution, and that would definitely make it all worth it. I just wonder, has anyone else out there tried this drug? And did you find that you had a lot of side effects or shakiness? I'm kind of curious to see if this is going to affect my appetite or my sleep patterns like prednisone does. I never get roid rage or anything (knock on wood), but I definitely do eat a lot on steroids.

Happy drugging everyone.