MAG, Prednisone (a form of cortisone) is pretty much a necessity after a heart transplant, so I have taken a bunch of it, and they now have me on about the minimal dose they ever use because I have had so many unpleasant side effects. Among other things, it threw me into such a severe manic state that I totally lost touch with reality for weeks, until they could find an antidote. The result was that I had to take *two* highly toxic meds, because the antidote is almost as bad.

I know a man who had two broken vertebrae in the first year after his transplant. My doctor's father-in-law dislocated his shoulder playing tennis because cortisone had weakened his tendons and colloidal tissue so much.

Be conservative. Be very conservative. Explore any and all alternatives. When they had to cut my cortisone dose, they had to put me on a horribly expensive ($1800.00 a month) medicine instead, but the doctor said I should be pleased because "cortisone is nasty stuff. We use it because it's effective, inexpensive and we can titrate the dosage easily; but it causes a lot of problems."

Is this enough horror stories? I don't mean to frighten you, just to urge you to explore alternatives. I don't actually think a single dose of injected cortisone would be likely to trigger bipolar disease, but it can cause some pretty weird mental effects as well as the physical stuff.

If you'd like more info you can e-mail me at

zither@erols.com

- Rita Ferrara