7. THE SECOND YEAR OF REMISSION
In 1995 when the arthritis peaked in October I suffered two minor strokes called TIA's. Also my eyes underwent a fairly drastic change and my prescription for my glasses after thirty years became useless. After the shot of cortisone in my right shoulder the eyes returned to normal but the ophthamologist told me that I had Macular Degeneration in the right eye along with a cataract. I checked out all of the information available on the internet and medical literature for these problems but found that about the only thing that might help was vitamins E, C and cortisone. However no significant studies had been done. About that time the medical profession was highly recommending vitamin E daily and 80 mg aspirin pills every other day to avoid heart attacks and strokes. At that time I started to take one 400 UI of E daily and the aspirin every other day. I had a glass of orange juice every morning and in addition I ate a whole fresh orange to get the extra vitamin C. I have been doing this now for about three years including most of 1998. During the second year of remission of the arthritis I have been taking the cortisone dose but only every forty-five days. I have taken no ant-inflammatories. I have suffered no side effects from this regimen.
I check my eyes every morning using an Amsler chart. This is just a grided chart with quarter inch squares using white lines on a black background. With a good eye at reading distance with glasses the lines remain stable and you are able to see the whole chart when focused on a white dot in the center. Macular degeration causes the lines to wiggle and distort. When it gets real bad the center of the chart becomes a grey mess with no lines showing. I have two other charts which I got off the internet. One has black lines on a white background and the other has white lines on a dark green background. I use all three every morning after shaving. They are mounted on the back of the medicine cabinet door so they are quite handy. I have been doing this check daily for a year and a half. Although I have seen no improvement my right eye has not degenerated further and my left eye has remained without trouble.
The conclusions that I have come to as the result of the periodic use of cortisone is that it is possible to get remission from a very severe attack of arthritis. To avoid side effects one must not use cortisone daily. I used a monthly interval but it took a whole year for the cortisone to finally effectively restore the immune system to normal. However during this time the arthritis was under control for 18 days each month. The other 12 days required the use of some painkillers but the pain largely at night was not too severe. I was able to sleep in my own bed and was not awakened by pain.