[Southern Bell]

I wanted to let those of you who take prednisone know my experience with the drug.

I have been taking prednisone since January 2010. I have to take it because my "marker" as my ex-neurologist called it is my eyes. They will lock in place and I can't move them in either direction. This causes extreme double vision and nausea. I started at 60 mg daily and over the first two years the neuro slowly reduced the dosage. Too slow in my opinion. I changed neuros and in one year he has reduced me to 10 mg every other day.

At the first of this year I had my bone scan and was diagonised with osteoporosis. By July I started having extreme pain in my lower back. Finally got an appointment with an orthopaedic doctor and x-rays showed a compression fracture of my L4 vertebrae. I have had numerous falls since 2009 due to MG and SPS so I'm sure my spine is quite vulnerable. After an MRI, I have been told that my entire spine has some various size of fracture.

I know many of you know the possible problems with long term usage of prednisone if not please read up on it and discuss it with your doctor. I truly regret that I've had to take it for so long and will probably have to continue to take it as a maintenance drug for my ocular muscles. I didn't read up until after I had been taking it for a while.

I don't know if I'll be a candidate for kyphoplasties which should help correct the L4 vertebrae since it's been about 6 to 7 months since my first evidence of a problem. That's still to be determined.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Southern Bell