Saturday, July 24, 2010

What to do, What to do?

I spoke with my rheumy for my weekly check and I mentioned that the naturopath wants me to start on a very low dose of DHEA to help me get off of the prednisone.  Unfortunately, she doesn't think it is a good idea and told me not to take it, while he was pretty adamant about me taking it.  I'm stuck in the middle of who do I listen to.  Both of them are new doctors to me and both come highly recommended but they seem to have differing ways of doing medicine; which makes since one is into the herbs/natural things and the other is into regulated medicine.  My gut instinct is to listen to my rheumy and just follow the strict diet he proposed to see if that helps and if it doesn't then check more into the DHEA.  I was surprised when she didn't think it was a good idea but I feel like with me increasing one med and trying to decrease my prednisone that adding something else into the mix may not be the best timing and that is probably where she is coming from.
If anyone reading this has taken DHEA, I'd love to hear your experiences with it.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there, new to your site but found it in the Lupus magazine at the Lupus Foundation office in Tucson AZ. I am 34, diagnosed at 30 with SLE. Other complications rare flare up of medium vasculitis (med vessels inflammed), Sjogrens, Raynaud's, Hypothyroid...

    I am new to Alternative Therapies but my RHEUMY tested my DHEA levels and found I am low so she put me on 50mg a day. That's my Rheumy, mind you. Ive only been on it for 2 weeks so far...too soon to tell you results.

    My mom is seeing a Chinese Med/Acupuncturist who does not believe I should be taking DHEA.

    So... I am setting out to find a great Naturalpath/DO and Chinese Med person down here in Tucson and hopefully find a middle ground.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is so hard to try and balance all of the different opinions of all doctors. Why can't they all just talk together instead of having us be the middle man. My DHEA levels were also extremely low so we decided to give it a try and see what happens. I definitely am feeling better but the medication, Cellcept, that I started is just starting to kick in so it is difficult to say whether it is the DHEA or the medication. I love my naturopath as he is great about getting back to me very quickly, unfortunately though he is located in Connecticut. Good luck finding one and make sure they specialize in autoimmune diseases. My naturopath has a website www.draieta.com that you could check out and contact him to see if he knows of anyone by you.

    ReplyDelete