Lowest effective dosage of pred?

[lsgs]

Hi,

I am currently undiagnosed. There is some form of inflammatory bowel disease but docs not sure if it's coming from another autoimmune disease I have (sjogren's syndrome) or inflammatory bowel disease.

Anyway, I had a kenalog (80mg) shot roughly about 3m ago (which I guess would be wearing off about now) and had a good response, no diarrhoea or nocturnal diarrhoea etc, so I was put on oral prednisolone (50mg) and it honestly worked WONDERS. It was 90% symptom relief!!

As I tapered down to 10mg I have had a complete and spectacular relapse. Can't eat, weight loss, abdo pain, diarrhoea and I mean hellish painful diarrhoea.

Phoned doc and he said to go back up to 20mg and then start tapering by 1mg pw.

I have taken 20mg today and I'm still in agony.

Has anyone else found there is a certain dosage they can't get below, or they get a relapse of symptoms on pred or anything?

Thanks.

 

[Jennifer]

Its very common for people to have a hard time coming off of Prednisone. If there's nothing else stopping the inflammation from occurring than when you taper down the inflammation just pops right back up. Its possible that in another day or two the increase in Pred could start to make you feel a little better yet its also possible that you may need a higher dose (and definitely sounds like you need something to help stop the inflammation in its tracks or prevent it from occurring yet I know doing that is difficult without a diagnosis).

Most common dose I hear mentioned on the forum where people start seeing symptoms again is around 10mg. Hope you get a diagnosis soon and keep us posted on how you're doing!

 

[lsgs]

Thanks for the reply, quite reassuring. I have had a big improvement today and able to eat reasonably well. Looks like the taper was too quick and as you say nothing to stop the inflammation rising again.

You folks are lovely on here