It's that time of the year again!

Well, it's spring and as always in spring, trees will turn green and attempt to reproduce using their "biological warfare" as I like to call it, namely Pollen! The great fear for us who suffer from seasonal hayfever.
I've been allergic to pollen since my early teens, and for each year it basically just gets worse. Despite my best efforts to keep my symptoms at a manageable level with antihistamines and local steroids, I have since 2010 ended up with needing oral steroids or long acting steroid injections to get back in control of the situation.
Now it's that time of the year again, my pollen issues are at its peak despite taking both Desloratadin tablets and Mometason nasal spray and inhaling Ventoline when needed. I'm now on this season's round of Betamethasone tablets too! As much as I dislike taking cortisone type medicines due to the possible risks with it, it is indeed a necessary evil when it comes to this allergy, and the benefits from taking it greatly outweighs the risks.
See, cortisone isn't good to take if you have a connective tissue disorder that's already weakening your connective tissue, as cortisone may also weaken the tissue. But I'm just on a low dose for maybe two weeks, so it should be fine. In the past years when I've taken cortisone of any kind for my allergy, I have not noticed a negative impact on my joints at least. But the general recommendation for connective tissue disorders like Ehlers Danlos Syndrome or Marfan etc. is to avoid steroids as much as possible.

Another thing that I do get with cortisone tablets is secondary diabetes. My blood glucose gets elevated and even goes above the diabetes threshold at times. It's also a common side effect of cortisone. But again, I'm only taking it for such a short time, so to me, the discomfort of an elevated blood glucose is a pretty cheap price to pay for feeling so much better allergy wise. I do however keep a blood glucose monitor at home, I've had it for years due to fluctuating glucose levels even when I'm not taking cortisone. But when I am on cortisone type medicine, I test my levels regularly to make sure I don't go dangerously high all of a sudden.
Today I've already been kinda high-ish and my levels are elevated compared to my normal, but not alarmingly high. Do I feel that my levels are elevated? Why yes, I do, but it's not out of hand. I get higher levels on Prednisone or Prednisolone than I do on Betamethasone, so I'm glad to be able to take Betamethasone which along with not giving me as high levels, also doesn't give me that "steroid restlessness" and insomnia that cortisone medicines may cause.

Hoping to not need the Betamethasone for very long this year, but I am expecting a couple of weeks because that's the norm for me. Also hoping my joints will behave this season as well. My left shoulder is clonking enough and subluxing even when I'm not taking any medicines that's affecting the tissue.

On a completely different note, my wheelchair had a flat tire yesterday, so now I've experienced that too! Sometime has to be the first for that as well. Fortunately I had a spare inner tube at home so dad and I could change the inner tube of the tire. Didn't find a leak immediately on the old inner tube, but the tube did lose a lot of air within just hours yesterday so it was best to change it. Old tube still has some air in it and will see when I wake up if it has leaked more or not, and dad may check it more for leaks too. We're not sure if it's the rubber or actual valve that's broken, just that it is something that makes the air seep out at a slow pace.
And I really need to do some maintenance of my caster wheels too! Should do that tomorrow.