Better by the day.

This is my fourth day on 60mg of prednisone for relapsed BOOP.

My resting heart-rate is slowly coming down. It's no longer screaming along at 125 beats per minute.
Sitting here at my computer it seems to vary between 82 and 105, I'm guessing that it will continue to slowly drop it's window down to something approaching 70-90 over the coming week as my blood levels approach normal again.

I can only assume that my haemoglobin levels are are rising to normal as my heart-rate drops.
I might get a blood test done this week just to confirm.

The only other problem I have to work on now is this darn itch. It's keeping me awake at night and even invades my dreams. It torments me in both my waking and sleeping states.
I've spent countless hours researching what could be causing it and it comes down to four possible things. All are long shots..

1: Anemia: Long shot, as I don't think I've been anemic for as long as I've had the itch.

2: Type 2 Diabetes. Possible due to the prednisone and tests that show I'm in the danger zone. But no other diabetes symptoms.

3: Long term use of prednisone causing a rebound effect and skin damage. Long shot. Only vague anecdotal evidence to support the theory. Itch is unaffected by prednisone which is the standard treatment for skin itch. (Pruritus)

4: Hodgkins Lymphoma. Classic symptom of HL seen in around 30% of patients. However I have no other HL symptoms. However I do have enlarged but dormant lymph nodes in my pelvis. It doesn't feel like the typical HL itch and it seems to respond to various lotions, potions and creams at a topical level.

There is just one person that claims to have found a remedy for the intractable itching from Hodgkins Lymphoma. Imagine that.. millions of useless links in Google and just by chance I found the single paragraph where a sufferer posted about her success after making a tea from the flower of the Tri-colour Viola flower. I've ordered a quality from a place in the US and shall see if it works at a systemic level. Nothing ventured...


...Ron