Steroids
 

Hi everyone,

Another day another thread! I had to go to hospital yesterday with severe iritis, related to my AS. I also now have what the ophthalmologist believes to be sinusitis, my whole head hurts awfully and I can't do much. I'm seeing my gp and going to ask for steroid tablets to help provide some temporary respite. Seeing as I am going to ask for steroids I wanted to also ask what dose one mmight deem effective for testing sfn. I don't expect it will do much. I did try steroids in the last for about 5 days but don't know what dose I had.
Any ideas?
I'm on topical eye steroids drops for my eye.

:-)

If you have sinusitis, then you may need antibiotics as well as steroids. The steroids actually help the antibiotics to work better at clearing up the infection.

As for the steroid dose for SFN, there are taper packs that start at 60 mg for 2-3 days, then 40 mg for a couple days, then 30, 20, 10, 5 etc until you taper off. This is a moderate to hefty dose, but IF it was going to help, you should notice it with this dose. They also taper packs that start lower at 40 mg or higher at 80 mg...and then they taper down from there just like the first one mentioned.

Thankyou for the detailed info. I don't believe there is infection there, looked up online and it mentioned nose blockage and mucus etc which I don't have. I believe this is chronic inflammation without infection but I'm not 100% sure.
Just about to see my gp, they are just awful, I will have trouble even getting the lowest dose available. They don't ever look at my notes properly before I see them. Fingers crossed I get something reasonable to try.
Thanks all.

Hi Joanna

Have you considered systemic Candidiasis in the sinus? It's possible to have an infection occur from previous antibiotic use, which although treated and apparently cleared up, may still reside in the sinus area to reoccur later - often months - even years after the original infection.

Symptoms may be subtle such as a mildly blocked nose which moves from one nostril to the other when you turn while sleeping. The symptoms may increase during times when the immune system is weak and spread to the mouth and throat area.