Pred Q

[FruitLoop]

Hi - I was put onto Prednisilone 30mg and had to reduce at 5mg a week to hopefully have a "short term" pred treatment.

The reduction to 25 mg was fine but when i dropped to 20mg last week the symptoms started geting worse and today i had to ring the DR and go back up to 25mg.

Has anyone successfully weaned off pred with a weekly reducing does ? i.e a 6 week course ?

When i have been on it before it's been 6 months on maximum dose and then reduce over 6 - 12 weeks.

The reason they went for the reducing dose so fast was my insistence that I did not need pred and only agreeing after being threatened with admission.

What dose / weaning shedule have you been / are you on ?

Thanks

I am having a colonoscopy on Thursday so hopefully this may lead to a better anti-inflammatory as i am currently on Pentasa which seems to be doing nothing.

 

[Kittee]

I was on that same taper you are on. And I'm currently holding at 20mg until they can get my insurance to clear Remicade. I'm kinda suffering at 20mg but its not "intolerable." I hurt every day but not so much I can't handle it at 20mg. If I went back up to 30mg I know I wouldn't feel any pain at all but I don't want to increase my risk of side effects from the Pred.

My doctor pretty much put it to me this way.

"Take the least amount you can for now until the Remicade gets into your system. Balance your pain tolerance and the risk. I trust you to decide what dosage you need."

So even though I desperately would like to take more to stop this pain I don't want to risk it.


*hugs* Hope that helps.

 

[katiesue1506]

My taper schedule went like this:

40mg
60mg
40mg
30mg
25mg
20mg
15mg
12.5mg
10mg
7.5mg
5mg
2.5mg
1mg


I think it was roughly 2-3 weeks between each interval

 

[Creepy Lurker]

I reduced from 60 to 20 in the typical sort of way. Lower than 20mg I tended to flare up so I was dropping 1mg every fortnight till 5mg then by 0.5 for the last 5 weeks.

Took forever. Been steroid free for a year now.

 

[Jeff D.]

I'm on 30 right now but it's going to like this

60
40
30
20
10
0

When I get to 10 I should be on remicade and I shouldn't need pred any more.

 

[elp888]

My taper went from 40 to 0 with 5 mg intervals, every week.
I started taking Aza the first week of the taper, which should have started working when the Pred was finished. I've also had resection surgery 3 weeks ago. I feel good now, but don't know whether that's because of drugs or surgery, or both?

take care,
e.

 

[drew_wymore]

I went from 60 to 0 on a weekly drop in dosage until I got until 10 and 5mg where I did 2 week intervals between them per my doctor. Benson here on the forums brought up a good point in another thread that your body makes around 7.5mg naturally so you have to stay around 2 weeks on the lower doses to cause your body to begin producing its own again.

 

[BWS1982]

What Drew said was heard from my doc (one of the top GI's in the area), and it makes sense, you reach the point where your body says "Uh-oh, it looks like you are ingesting this artificial stuff in lower doses, I might have to startup my pred factories", and this is a rough time, especially for the longer pred schedules.

My taper was abnormal, as I was on it for 7 months or so, and my first attempt to taper was not good, and even after raising it back up I still was getting really bad, right around Christmas. I was at 20, then back to 30, then up again to 35, and each time it did nothing. Finally that lack of anything put me in the hospital in January, the docs think my GI system was flowing so fast that my prednisone was shooting through before it could be absorbed. Mind you I was on Cortico Enemas (the worst pain of my life) for 4 months up to then too, with virtually no improvement. The IV Solumedrol steroid seemed to do the trick in January. Then, as soon as I was released, I had to go as follows:

40 for 1 week
35 for 1 week
30 for 1 week
25 for 1 week
20 for 1 week

-then it slowed because I was reaching the critical part, and this is where I flared trying to taper in the fall last year

17.5 for 1 week
15 for 1 week
12.5 for 1 week

-then it sped up because the doc saw such bad side effects and I was on it for 6 months already

10 for 5 days
7.5 for 5 days
5 for 5 days
2.5 for 5 days

I've been flaring for almost a year, but I'll tell you I have fluctuated since the hospital up and down, and I can't tell you if my body took the taper well or not. I CAN tell you that I'm glad to be off it now 6 weeks running almost and my doc says the last thing he wants is to put me back on it. Im having HORRIBLE fatigue still, and it's annoying as hell.