Medication side effects - months 1 to 3

Days 1 to 90.

In general I felt quite well in months 1 and 2 of the treatment of both my heart problems and my cardiac sarcoidosis.

For the record, here is a list of my medications for this period:

Medication	Dosage
Bisoprolol	2.5 mg
Candesartan	4 mg
Prednisone	40 mg
Methotrexate	20mg
Folic acid	5 mg

Feeling woozy

Caused by: Bisoprolol

The day after I started Bisoprolol, which is a beta blocker medication to help the heart pump blood easier, I felt quite light headed.

Bisoprolol lowers your blood pressure. I already have quite low blood pressure. The initial combination seemed a bit worrying, but lucky the light-headedness didn't hang around after the first day or two for me.

Feeling pumped

Caused by: Prednisone

One of the first side effects mentioned to me by the doctors was that it may cause you to feel elevated. I didn't know what to expect from that statement.

Turns out for me, that meant a whole lot of energy. Like jump out of bed and clean the house energy. Or get home and cook a full meal while managing bath time energy. Or going for a power walk energy. Or doing all three in one day energy.

Reading this list back, it may seem like every day tasks. I hadn't realised how much fatigue I had had before until I started taking Prednisone. All I can say is - wow, what a difference this has made to my life.

Struggling to sleep

Caused by: Prednisone

The first 2 weeks were the worst in terms of struggling to sleep. My sleep patterns changed with me going from going to bed at around 8 PM to around 10 PM. That was a whole extra 2 hours of talking to the husband.

Due to my water intake I also had a usual 1 AM wake up to use the toilet. This is where most of my struggles occurred, as I just could not get back to sleep after waking up at this point.

I made changes like keeping the bedroom darker if I woke up in the middle of the night, which seemed to help. I also really focused my mind to not think or worry about things in the early hours. This was really hard (still is). Lastly, I also really made an effort to not look at or activate my phone during this time. Something that aided this was to use my watch to check the time instead of my phone.

My body seemed to adapt over time to the new levels of energy. I still suffer with this a bit, but not as badly as at the beginning.

Glowing

Caused by: Prednisone? Or make up...

I am not sure of the exact cause, but I have been receiving numerous comments about how I appear to be glowing.

I suspect this is related to increased energy levels from the Prednisone causing my face to look flushed. I have also been wearing more tinted moisteriser in a bid to hide some of the visible veins in my face with my skin thinning slightly.

Either way, the glowing in combination with the lack of alcohol has led to a lot of questions on whether I am pregnant or not. The joys of being a woman of a certain age. Sigh.

Changes to my skin

Caused by: Prednisone? Or methotrexate?

I have been seeing a lot of fine veins and redness, presumably from my skin thinning. This is quite noticeable in my cheeks, on my arms near my elbows and around my knees.

My skin has also been a lot drier than usual. The knuckles on my hands have been very dry, and I have had to invest in a decent hand cream.

Scratches I pick up from day to day activities have not been healing as quickly as previously and have appeared more angry and red.

Cuts have also been taking longer to heal. The skin is just taking a long time to rejoin together, especially noticeable on my hands.

Diet changes

I started making heart healthy choices after pretty much my first ventricular tachycardia event.

For me this meant the following:

No more coffee.
No more alcohol.
A lot more veggies.
Less of the less valuable carbs.

I was already making pretty good choices in some areas of my diet, but the balance was probably off.