- Joined
- Jan 21, 2012
- Messages
- 8
Hey, guys, I'm about to start my fourth consecutive prednisone taper while we try a different form of a long-term fix (azathioprine, in this case), and my father and I reached a bit of an impasse; hope you guys could shed some light on it.
Each of my previous tapers have started at 50 mg and worked slowly towards a goal of 0. My first complimentary drug was lialda, which was ineffective with my moderate to severe Crohn's pancolitis, and my symptoms started to return rather severely when I got down to about 20 mg (although I tended to 'feel' the drop in dosage each time I needed to do so).
Now, I'm on 100 mg of azathioprine, and am going to move up to 150. In the meantime, however, my pred has dropped to 10 mg, the lowest it's been since my diagnosis (yay). However, my symptoms have started to rear their ugly heads again, and I find myself now terrified of out-of-state travel and I'm starting to lose weight again.
Here's the problem: dad believes that what I'm going through is a withdrawal, of sorts. Once the drug is completely out of my system, and I no longer have a 'dependence' on it, my symptoms should subside. Not only that, but he believes that I shouldn't expect to fully recover, and that I will have to, at times, 'suffer' to a minor extent, because that's the nature of the beast. Don't even get me started about his opinion of Humira, which the doc says may be on the table...
Anyway, I've never heard of this kind of withdrawal from prednisone, and I'd just like to hear someone weigh in.
Thanks in advance!
Blue
Each of my previous tapers have started at 50 mg and worked slowly towards a goal of 0. My first complimentary drug was lialda, which was ineffective with my moderate to severe Crohn's pancolitis, and my symptoms started to return rather severely when I got down to about 20 mg (although I tended to 'feel' the drop in dosage each time I needed to do so).
Now, I'm on 100 mg of azathioprine, and am going to move up to 150. In the meantime, however, my pred has dropped to 10 mg, the lowest it's been since my diagnosis (yay). However, my symptoms have started to rear their ugly heads again, and I find myself now terrified of out-of-state travel and I'm starting to lose weight again.
Here's the problem: dad believes that what I'm going through is a withdrawal, of sorts. Once the drug is completely out of my system, and I no longer have a 'dependence' on it, my symptoms should subside. Not only that, but he believes that I shouldn't expect to fully recover, and that I will have to, at times, 'suffer' to a minor extent, because that's the nature of the beast. Don't even get me started about his opinion of Humira, which the doc says may be on the table...
Anyway, I've never heard of this kind of withdrawal from prednisone, and I'd just like to hear someone weigh in.
Thanks in advance!
Blue