decadron causes eye pressure to climb

So I've had two taxol treatments now. Yesterday's wasn't any harder than the first one. I got half the steroid I had the first time (10 mg rather than 20) since I had no trouble the first time. This time they gave me the benadryl first, so I didn't get a buzzy feeling with the steroid, which was nice. Still I don't like the benadryl feeling, though -- but it's not that big a deal.

My eye pressure seems to be going up in the left eye, though. I don't see my eye doctor til next week (Tuesday -- unless I can get them to fit me in Monday am instead) but it just so happens that Matthew had broken his glasses, so I took him to get a checkup at his local eye doctor on Tuesday & put in an order for glasses, and somehow the doctor ended up offering me a free pressure check. It was a little high in the left eye then (high teens), but that could be consistent with normal variation. He said I could get it checked again when I picked up Matthew's glasses.

Well I got the call yesterday that Matthew's glasses were in and convinced Matthew to wait til today to get them, so I could take advantage of the free pressure check 24 hrs after my 2nd taxol treatment. Well today the pressure was 20-21 in the left eye, which is clearly too high. (The right eye is still 13-14; it's somewhat protected by a trabeculectomy -- a surgical procedure I had done in 1999.)

I may have mentioned this before -- but normal eye pressures are 10-20; however, for a glaucoma patient with the level of nerve damage I have, the pressures need to be kept in the low teens. So -- if I had a bottle of xalatan I'd start it now! (I didn't get that far in my planning ahead..... so I'll have to wait a few days..... Leave it to me to get enough of a pressure increase to do something about on a Friday afternoon!)