I'm out of spoons

If you haven't read "The Spoon Theory" yet, look under Downloads on the right of your screen and read it now. It is a great resource to share with family and friends for them to understand your chronic, invisible illness.

I'm not sure if it is the steroid reduction or just a busy holiday season, but I am all out of spoons. I wasn't going to post today because I honestly don't have much to say or the energy to attempt to be clever. However, since the whole point of this blog is to track my journey as I reduce and change medications, as well as try various alternative treatments, I decided to should do a post about just how tired I am. Hopefully, some day soon I can look at this post and think how awesome it is that I have so much more energy!

As I've put in earlier posts, I'm trying to reduce the amount of steroids I am on from 25mg per day to 7.5mg. I've made the final reduction - so just 7.5mg per day - and I am exhausted. Again. I'm hoping it only takes a couple days for my body to balance out and my energy to come back...it is Christmas, after all! I have family in town and really look forward to spending time with them.

I am also on a fairly high dose of adepesque in the evenings. I think I needed such a high dose in the past because I was taking so much cortisol. I needed something to knock me out! Now I feel like I need to start cutting back on the adepesque and maybe that will help me feel less tired during the day. My doctor has warned me that it can make you feel "hungover" the next day if the dose is too high. Maybe that's all it is.

I have learned through this journey with chronic illness how important it is to be kind to my body and to myself. So I called in the housekeeper and she is currently taking care of cleaning my place. Friends have walked my dogs and helped with the kittens. I'll probably order in dinner.

Now, MOM, before you start blaming the kittens for me being tired, they really are not to blame. They are sleeping long stretches at night - 8 hours or more - I just can't seem to get enough sleep! I could sleep all day and still be tired.   

And yes, I feel like some kind of Hollywood socialite having my apartment cleaned for me, my laundry done, my food prepared...but if that's what my body needs today, I've learned to go with it.

For the record, I have done at least a load of laundry every day this week, but today. I'm not completely incapable of helping myself. 

 So I guess that's the moral of my story today. Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself. Hire a maid.

Happy holidays! May you have many spoons!

Love,

an Addison alien