Well, in my last very dark post I had no bump from the IVIG - my 63rd in-hospital - and was losing ground quickly. Finally I agreed (once again in spite of my saying "never never never") to go back on 80 mg of prednisone.
This is the third day and I feel like a new person. The crazy attack has settled down. I can eat again, the chills are much less severe and the overwhelming fatigue is easing. My day has extended from about 4 actives hours to about 8-10. After I'm stabilized the neuro wants to add back Cellcept or possibly Imuran. I was on both before. The Imuran made me feel better but I started having abnormal liver tests. The Cellcept never seemed to help, but they feel a steroid sparing drug is important when they start to wean me off the prednisone.
So in the end, I decided that fat and bloated was better than complete incapacitation or worse. I'm trying to stay on a low-salt, gluten-free and refined-sugar free diet to help minimized the side effects.
Thanks very much for the support. I read other blogs and feel very lucky in many ways.