things you learn about Corticosteroid Therapy

(a piece about incompliance)



Steroids are a little like Love



At first, you thought you don’t need it, until you get it. At the start of the course, every pain or inflammation seems to be the cure for it. Every erosion or lesion, you apply it. Every bad compression or congestion magically disappears as if Jesus touched it. Give it to a baby inside a womb and it makes your lungs ready to suck in the air that will make you breathe in that much needed fuel for your life. It gives a temporary immunosuppression, but that prohibits the body to attack itself therefore making it therapeutic.



Steroids are somewhat like Love



It’s better if you start low and go slow, specially on special cases. You gradually increase the dose to reach an optimum therapeutic level but you have to be watchful for any side effects and immediately reformulate if there is. Either you change what kind of steroids they are, or play around with the dosage, either way it’s a risk. It’s like jumping on a cliff with inviting waters below: the jump will always be a risk, sometimes you get bruises while falling, or might not even reach the water at all, but if you did reach the water, it might heal you. Sometimes it is looking with the risks that make them worth it. Most of the time, it scares the best of us.



Steroids are Exactly like Love



Your blood goes paranoid and trigger-happily releases all arsenal of immunity. Your bone weakens. You deposit unwanted adipose. Your hormones explode like fireworks. Your body gets alarmed due to being overwhelmed. And then you feel cold. And you chill. And get susceptible to infections. You open your door wider to more pathogens that will try to contaminate you. And eat you. And kill you. Your normal flora decides a mutiny and attacks you too. And then you panic and stop the drug –



--- and when you stop it, you’re a different person. Sometimes your body will not be able to catch up to your mind, all the more it cannot catch up to your heart. You feel weak. Weaker than before you were even sick. You’re left asking the reason behind it. You should’ve listened to the one who prescribed it. You should’ve been vigilant in watching side effects. But you thought you knew better, you drowned in the drug, thinking that it would numb everything and it would fix everything... and in trying to do so, you’re left with none. You shouldn’t have done it in the first place.