the autoimmune professor

So, it has been quite a while since I have written and finally have time to keep updating! Since I last posted, a lot has happened. After visiting numerous specialists including a neuro-ophthalmologist, an endocrinologist, and a hepatologist, I am hoping that I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of my symptoms including the eye pressure finally went away and my prescription normalized. Due to the Sjogren’s, I do still have a little eye pressure sometimes, but nothing that is too terrible. I am also having a lot of dry eye symptoms that are causing issues with wearing contacts but have found a dry eye / contact lens drops that helps and I just wear my glasses a lot more now.

As I had stated earlier, the prednisone caused so many issues, one of which was an increase in weight gain and early onset diabetes. After seeing the endocrinologist, we decided to do whatever we could to try and lose weight as well as start exercising as much as possible. Starting January 1 of last year, I completely overhauled my diet, started exercising and doing everything I could to be as healthy as possible. I lost 20 lbs. in 2 months and felt great! Unfortunately, losing the 20 lbs. along with my diet did not help my glucose levels at all. I had to take a glucose tolerance test, which was one of the most awful things I have ever experienced. The drink itself really was not that bad, but it made me very dizzy and lightheaded, and super-hot and faint. I actually had to lie on the bathroom floor of the lab while they packed me in ice packs. I had my continuous glucose monitor on at the time and my sugar got up to the 400s and then never went back to normal until hours later that day. The endocrinologist decided that he did not want to put me on insulin since I do not usually have spikes like that and that instead he wanted to see what could be done to reverse the diabetes as he felt that it was strictly the prednisone that caused the issue. We talked about a lot of different diabetes meds, but because it seemed to be all caused by the prednisone and the weight gain, he decided that I should go on Ozempic. I was a little against Ozempic after the things I had read and researched, but at the same time, I knew that it was originally manufactured for this exact issue and any weight loss that did happen would be helpful. I started on the smallest dose of Ozempic in early March 2024 and it helped tremendously. It started leveling out my glucose levels a little bit. I did go up to the 1.0 dosage, but that was the highest that I ever went and it was only for a month. I lost a total of 70 lbs. which was great and now my glucose is completely normal once again. I am now on a taper to come off of the Ozempic; however, it also helped with my lupus symptoms and put me in remission for awhile, so the rheumatologist is a little hesitant on me going off of completely. For the time being, I just take the lowest dose once a week.

The first was taken about a month into my weight loss, I started at 195. The second was last week! (I also apologize for the dog hair on my scale, we have a pomeranian puppy that is shedding his undercoat and growing in his adult coat LOL!