Former Poster In Need of Prayer

[Longhorn Al]

I was contacted by the wife of a former poster here (Snoop Dogg) and informed that he was in the hospital. I'm going to visit him tomorrow and try to find out how he's doing. The doctors aren't sure what is causing his latest problems. I may also decide to watch some of the March Madness tourney with him in the hospital rather than at a sports bar.

I'll let y'all know how he's doing. You can also PM me.

 

[Bacone Cap]

Prayers. Send our best!!!

 

[Bevoette]

Damn it ! he's been through so much.

Prayers for Snoop Dogg.

 

[SA_Town_Horn]

My prayers are with him.

Keep us updated Alan.

 

[HornHuskerDad]

Prayers for Snoop Dogg. May God's hand be moving on him.

HornHuskerDad

 

[longhornbell]

Prayers for speedy, complete recovery.

 

[stockjock]

I thought about Snoop the other day for some reason. Hadn't seen him on here lately. Hope he is OK.

 

[lowery21]

Prayers snoop. Miss hearing from you dude.

 

[gobears92]

I love you Snoop Dogg....

....miss you greatly...prayers for you, your wife, and beautiful beautiful beautiful children....God Speed my friend!!!

 

[bigup2dahorns]

i rarely click on this board. but i was thinking of snoop, and wondering where he was and how he was doing. and i found this thread. thanks for the update. prayers and well-wishes to snoop

 

[Anonymous]

Snoop sent out a mass email, and thought I would pass it along to you guys. Things got really scary for him as you'll read and see. This latest bout is with high dose long term usage of Prednisone.

Here is the email a few of us got from him. If anyone wants to get in touch with him, I am sure Longhorn Al would be willing to give you his email address.


For several weeks, I was in and out of the hospital. Mainly going in because of the unyielding pain from Rheumatoid Arthritis, but as time progressed, was also checking in because of various complications from the close to two years on high doses of Prednisone. Things like tremors, high blood pressure, muscle and bone pain, and many other disturbing symptoms.

These were not your normal every day, I'm in a bad mood type of Prednisone issues, but full on Cushing's and three very frightening Addison's Crisis episodes that were all misdiagnosed originally.

On Wednesday evening, March 7, I was rushed to the ER of Rockdale's Richard's Memorial Hospital with severe chest pain. My blood pressure was 160/110 and my pulse rate was 120 - 150 bpm. I was given nitroglycerine and morphine for pain while the did the usual testing and took the usual x rays.

Well, at that point they decided to admit me for observation. They said they knew I had not had a heart attack, but with my pulse and blood pressure so elevated, they wanted to make sure I did not have a heart attack.

Over the following two days various tests were run, and the physician decided to drop my prednisone dose by 5mg/day. On Sunday March 11 at about 5:30AM, my striations on my stomach began to open up and bleed. This was the initial pain I felt that woke me up. Next, I began to shake violently and the shooting, unbearable pain in my legs started. By this time, I had woke Elana up, and the nurse was in the room watching while my stomach began to bloat, bleed, and turn black. My blood pressure show up and my pulse rate was close to and did exceed 200 bpm's. I was also turning blue, and my oxygen saturation was terribly low, even on oxygen. The on call doctor was called in, and I do not remember what meds they began administering through the IV. My new primary care doctor was called in shortly after that and worked up a full program to bring me back down from Addison's Crisis.

There is not a lot I remember about that day, but what I do know is that when your whole body is failing like that, it hurts like hell. They had me on percocet, morphine, and the transdermal patch and I still can not remember ever being in so much agonizing pain. It was after this event that my doctor made the call to transfer me to Scott & White Hospital in Temple. I was transfered on Wednesday (March 14th) afternoon.

Ok, well, after almost two weeks in the hospitals, and getting myself a new doctor, I am finally with some relief, and slowly cycling off the Prednisone.

First, here is what I was diagnosed with during my hospital stay from March 7 thru March 18th 2007.

1. Cushing's Disease (100% caused by the prednisone)
2. Addison's Crisis (multiple episodes)
3. Prednisone Psychosis (Similar to a severe manic phase of bi polar)
4. Respiratory Failure (caused by depleted immune system and multi-lobe pneumonia)

For the Rheumatoid Arthritis, they have me on Methotrexate and Humira. I take the Methotrexate once a week, and the Humira is an injection I give myself every two weeks.

I am also on high blood pressure meds like Lopressor and diabetic meds like Metformin because those are two additional problems that the Prednisone caused. They still do not know if I will ever not be diabetic once I am off the Prednisone. My blood glucose runs between 120 - 190, hitting the mid 200's a few times a week. The way my doc says this may run is that once that diabetic switch is flipped by the Prednisone, it stays on, even after I will have tapered completely off the Prednisone.

One of the other issues that was being called sciatic nerve pain, turned out to be diabetic nerve pain (my threshold for such things is decreased by the autoimmune illnesses of colitis and RA and prednisone issues) So, to treat that, as well as the depression, we switched me from Lexapro to Cymbalta, which also seems to be working.

On a good note, the Ulcerative Colitis is in remission thanks to Remicade infusions last year, and the Humira will also help. My esophagus still has issues, but have moved from Protonix to Nexium which is another proton pump inhibitor that is equally effective. Because of the Prednisone, I was still having a bit of breakthrough reflux, but the Nexium seems to have done a better job at controlling this. There is still some problems concerning my GI doctors, mainly a "Z shaped stricture and Gastroparesis".

Because they had tried everything from Norco (think extra strength Vicodin) to Morphine to Dilaudid, to control pain, there was a noticeable loss of appetite to severe nausea. So, my old doctor put me on phenergan. Told me only take one every 6 hours at most. Well, that didnt do anything. Once I switched to this new doctor and told him phenergan was not working, he then tells me "you know you can take two of those every 4 - 6 hours right?" He then tells me that some doctors are very conservative and while that is good to a certain extent, if their patients are still miserable, they need to be flexible enough to look at changing things up. So, I am on Percocet 10/325 2 tabs 4-6 hrs and the Duragesic 50MCG/HR Patch and having very little pain, and am able to get through the days and nights a lot easier.

The conversation with the doctor while talking about the pain issues was actually kind of funny, and also was a big deal in trust. I told him, point blank, I have three kids and care for a lot of animals like snakes and lizards, so it is my understanding that the more meds I take, the more likely it becomes for me to make errors in judgement. He tells me that this is a myth for patients in genuine chronic pain. He said that the amount of pain medications that I am currently on could potentially be lethal to someone without this sort of severe chronic pain. But the way the body handles the medication, it not only doesn't cause lethal risks, but also does not usually impair my cognitive skills. So far, all I have noticed is a very mild euphoria that lasts about 5 minutes when I take the Percocet. The big thing I notice is that I am able to sit here and type things like this up, clean the snakes cages, and play with the kids a little bit when they get home from school. These are things that from December till just a couple of weeks ago were not happening, and could not happen. I also notice myself getting back to a normal weight range for me, and less swelling of the face, hands and feet.

So, in a nutshell, I am still recovering and this is being sent to everyone to let you all know what exactly happened, and what is going on now. I would be in favor of spreading the word on just how bad the symptoms can get while on prednisone for an extended time and high doses. So feel free to let anyone read this if they are being told they should go on prednisone as a way to help with inflammatory illnesses like ulcerative colitis (the reason I was originally put on it), rheumatoid arthritis, gout or anything else. Sure it can help, but physicians dont tend to tell you about Cushing's and Addison's that can develop from this medication.

Also, I included three pictures from all this. One is of my arm, showing just how dark and random the marks were throughout my body and limbs. Second one is of how swollen my feet were for the entire time, even with diuretics administered through IV.

Bruises...my stomach was covered in similar looking striations that were open and bleeding. I will spare you that image.
ng-joke.com/100_8212.jpg">

The reason they had me on high doses of diuretics is due to the horrible swelling, caused by Prednisone. This was miserable, andlasted for well over a week. This swollen.

Yeah, I am on more medications than a lot of AARP medicare patients. Fun with this is when you have meds that look alike, and take one, and realize, "oh no, I just took my ambien" and it's only 11AM. Yes that has happened a couple of times.

 

[schnarkle]

Hang in there Snoop! Prayers upon prayers...

 

[stockjock]

 

[miguelito]

This is the saddest I've been in a long time. So I thought I'd come to hornfan's 'chapel' and pray a while.