Ana had her 2-week visit with the new hematologist, and her platelets levels were the same as they were 2 weeks ago so that apparently finally “proves” that prednisone isn’t helping. Glad it took 5 months for that to be clear.
Anyway, she’s going to start the weaning process – dropping her dosage 10mg/week while continuing to get blood tests every week. The plan is to see if once she tapers down slowly her levels stay where they are – they are low (51k) but definitely manageable. If they don’t continue to drop, they’ll call it good enough and, I presume, just test her every now and again as well as us being on the lookout for the symptoms of the low platelets.
If on the other hand she does drop again after stopping the prednisone, it’ll be time to look at the spleen removal as the next phase.
The Johnson Blog 
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2 responses to “Prednisone”
Now, Eric, don’t be so bitter! Medicine is not an exact science–especially when compared to the world of computers! And each practitioner (a HUMAN!) practices medicine in his own way–they all have pretty much the same knowledge, but may approach a problem in a totally different way.
That’s why you are free, and ENCOURAGED to “shop around” for the physician who best meets and fits your needs.
Just thought I’d offer a little input from my world!
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Yeah I know, and we have to keep telling ourselves that. It was just a little difficult to see the same pattern (of dosage, time, and platelets levels – Ana had it graphed out) as the doctor and then be puzzled as to why he chose to do things he did. He would describe what we saw, then explain what he would do next; but it often seemed to conflict with a logical approach of changing one thing at a time so you can definitively say what effect that one thing had. Rinse and repeat for 3 months.
So we did shop around. We’re happy with this new doctor, he seems much more methodical and logical.
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