Fair warning: I’m back on the hard stuff

Remember the miracle nose-drying drug I told you about yesterday? Well, forget that. I spent the night snuffling, blowing, practically drowning. And this morning I had to hold my breath to eat, because I couldn't breathe through my nose at all.

So nothing had worked. Not the zyrtec, not the allegra, not the Alka-Seltzer Plus, not the diphenhydramine, not the Afrin, not the celebrated ipratropium bromide, even in various combinations.

Those of you who have suffered, really suffered, with hay fever probably know what that means. Yes, I had to Go Nuclear. I called the doctor's office, and they told me to go ahead and take the prednisone that I keep on hand for severe asthma — but which will work just as well on hay fever, itchy eyes, etc., when you run out of other options. I took 60 mg. (six pills) as soon as I got off the phone, and will take another 40 tonight, and then it will take nine more days to taper off of it. You can't just quit this stuff all of a sudden.

This is the second time in two months, after I'd managed not to resort to it since 2007. Dang.

You ever take this stuff? I don't know what it does to you, but it jacks me up. As an uncle once said when he first took it, "It revs my motor." It stimulates appetite (causing weight gain), interferes with sleep, and has various other effects on the bod that are less than pleasant. Although it's not a hallucinogen, for some reason it puts me in mind of what Wolfe wrote about Owsley Blues: "with a picture of Batman on them, 500 micrograms worth of Superhero inside your skull." Or imagine swallowing little Three Mile Islands and feeling them start to glow inside you…

But I exaggerate. Of course, that's one of the side effects.

So I thought I'd warn you that posts such as this one, written on my last prednisone experience, could be coming at you.

That's the bad news. The good news is that it freaking works. It always does. Also, it's cheap — like aspirin. You just hate to have to resort to it.

4 thoughts on “Fair warning: I’m back on the hard stuff”

  1. Bill C.

    Good to know, and I think I speak for all of us when I say, “Thank God it’s a leaky nose and not a leaky butt”. I don’t think we could stomach the details. Here’s to you never getting a hemorrhoid.

  2. Brad Warthen

    Well, actually, Bill… no, no, I mustn’t continue…
    Seriously, though, I thought yesterday that I had discovered a miracle drug, and wanted to share it with fellow allergy sufferers.
    Then, when I realized it wasn’t such a miracle, I felt I’d better do this followup.
    Actually, prednisone IS sort of a miracle drug. I’ve known that for a long time. You just better REALLY want to be cured to put up the the side effects…

  3. snotrag

    You know I’ve smoked a lot of grass
    O’ Lord, I’ve popped a lot of pills
    But I never touched nothin’
    That my spirit could kill
    You know, I’ve seen a lot of people walkin’ ’round
    With tombstones in their eyes
    But the pusher don’t care
    Ah, if you live or if you die
    Gosh darn, The Pusher
    Gosh darn, I say The Pusher
    I said Gosh darn, Gosh darn The Pusher man

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