I have permanent nerve damage from the spinal stenosis which was "discovered" approximately 10 years ago. I was still on a moderate dose of prednisone when I had a sudden onset of neurological changes not to mention excruciating leg pain. At one point I was dragging my right leg when I tried to walk.

I was being prepped for emergency surgery on my spine. I was told that I wasn't a good surgical candidate because of my years of prednisone use. Before surgery, the surgeon ordered a bone scan because he wanted to make sure I had enough "good bone" to hold all the hardware that would be needed to fuse my lumbar spine after all the "bad bone" was removed.

The surgeon said I would need at least a year to recover and being on prednisone would not be good. I felt like I had nothing to lose and the pain was excruciating so I took 100 mg of prednisone which eased the pain. The pain improved but I still have some nerve damage that causes leg weakness and foot drop mostly on the right. When surgery was delayed -- the recommendation was to let pain be the "deciding factor." I'm pretty sure the surgeon 10 years ago thought it was just a matter of time until pain decided things.

After the first incident, my rheumatologist renewed efforts to find a way to get me off Prednisone so surgery could happen safely. I think the pending surgery was one reason Actemra was approved for me.

Actemra infusions were initiated in order to facilitate surgery when I had the more recent incident with the synovial cyst. I needed to go back on Prednisone when there was a shortage of Actemra. When Actemra was restarted, the surgeon said I would need to stop Prednisone again and no Actemra for a month before surgery and a month after surgery. The only way that was going to happen was if I could go 2 months between Actemra infusions.

I quickly got off Prednisone when Actemra was restarted. When the synovial cyst disappeared the surgery was placed on hold again. I wasn't able to go 2 months between Actemra infusions.