My new morning regime

Since I'm on house arrest after bartering a discharge from the hospital, I thought I'd share my thoughts slowly about the past few weeks on this blog. But first of all, let me introduce my daily cocktail of wonder drugs....

The right eyebrow is a multivitamin, all the goodies that we busy people need to sustain our good health. I have been taking this fairly regularly in the past. Perhaps not as disciplined as I should have been, but I didn't see the need to be absolutely religious about this since I was a fit, healthy and bouncing person eating a well balanced diet. Anyway, this will become a daily fixture now, no harm popping one of these everyday.

The left eyebrow is the Calcium and Vitamin D supplement. This is to stave off the early onset of Osteoporosis, which is a common side effect of the smilie below.

The right eye is Famotidine, a proton-pump inhibitor that helps to prevent or reduce gastric ulceration, which can be caused by the nose and particularly the smilie. I have to take this in the morning and in the evening.

The left eye is the Potassium tablet. This will help replace the loss of postassium, which I will be weeing out at an increased rate due to the diuretic ( the white half-tablet tash ) that I've just started taking this morning to reduce the uncomfortable water retention in my legs.

The orange nose is Diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Essentially a painkiller with the added property of damping down inflammation, which is affecting my proximal muscles at the moment.

The white half moustache is Frusemide, the diuretic which is supposed to get rid of my elephantitis, as I call it. Water retention in my legs, especially the lower half. This was noticed before I went into hospital, but it has since gotten worse. Towards the evenings, my legs feel and look bloated, and the skin becomes very taut.

And finally...the evil smilie...9 tablets of Prednisolone, the wonder steroid that is supposed to tell my immune system to stop being daft and attacking my own muscles. Only problem is that the pred is non-specific, so it basically tells my immune system to switch off, period. Hence all the side effects and potential health problems that it can bring about. More about this later on when I get round to explaining what polymyositis is all about.