For 2 months now, Luke has had to take prednisone for the hemangioma on his nose. Every morning, I put 3.4 mL of the nasty tasting stuff into his bottle. The theory is that by putting it in his bottle, he will be so hungry he will ignore how awful the medicine tastes. To date, it has worked. Last week, he ran out of the medicine and went cold turkey. By Wednesday, he was going through serious withdrawals (I didn't know there were withdrawals from such a low dose). He would violently vomit anything he drank, was lethargic and just plain sad. Daddy was so upset that he called me at work to ask if he should rush Lukie to the emergency room. I had him take Luke's temperature and, happily, he was normal. That afternoon, we headed over to the doctor's office who, yup, declared Luke was going through steroid-withdrawal. Talk about Roid Rage! On Zantac for the reflux, he is doing better. He's still spitting up, but not like Wednesday. (Think tiny baby and the Exorcist.)
We traveled to UCLA on Friday to see the pediatric dermatologist. They decided to put Luke back on the steroids in an attempt to step him down slowly.
"Um, he hasn't had the 'roids since Monday. Aren't they out of his system?" I asked, attempting to protect the baby boy from more yuckiness.
"Well, most likely," the cute blonde med student replied. "But going off of steroids that quickly can affect his adrenal system."
Starting to feel like the worst Mommy on the planet, I clutched Lukie to me and tried to quiet Gracie (who decided then to have a serious explosion in her diaper).
But wait! There's more. Not only is he back on steriods, he has to take medicine for thrush in his mouth AND he has a topical cream for his nose when the steroids end. So, Lukie, my almost 6 month old is on 4 medications. Just call him the Medicine Man (aka Super Lukie).
