Pred withdrawal - worse at night? delayed reaction?

[twois]

Ugh ugh ugh... tapering off pred again... i don't get why some people can taper no problems and it just wrecks me!!

Was on 40 for 2wks... had a clean scope 5/13 (so 3 weeks ago) so dr dropped me straight to 20 w/ a 5-a-week taper. Dropping to 15 and 10 were fine... last Friday dropped to 5 and by Wednesday night i was retching constantly... but not until about 5pm, lasting till 2-3am. After two nights of that (plus feeling exhausted and hypotensive every time i stood up) i took myself back up to 7.5 yesterday, and still barfing and miserable last night... so i went all the way back to 10 today, and I'm still gazing into the great white abyss every 20-30 minutes.

(and this is extremely similar to my last Pred taper earlier this year, so i am inclined to think that's the cause again. No, i am not pregnant!)

a) is it reasonable/expected for there to be a 4 day delay in withdrawal symptoms?
b) is it reasonable/expected for those symptoms to NOT go away quickly with reinstatement of the last well tolerated dose?
c) is it reasonable/expected for symptoms to be dramatically worse at night if doses are taken@ 6-7am?

thanks for any input on this. My throat is just utterly raw between this and whatever sinus funkiness I'm also now dealing with and i feel like total crap.

 

[kateel]

Have you talked with your doc at all? I'm curious what they say? I'm currently tapering off pred, and I was wondering how long the w/d symptoms take to kick in. I seem to be getting extremely anxious on my taper day.

 

[hainman]

hey,ive just tapered of the pred completly,i was on 20mg for best part of 3years and went down 1mg a week but a couple of days after i stopped i felt like cold turkey,would feel tired,sick-ish but what realy screwed me up was the feeling of realy bad bad flu symptoms at night,be lying in a sleeping bag feeling so so cold yet my body was burning up.its slowly passing but i still get the odd nigt were i jump into my sleepingbag for comfort,im finding my energy levels at an all time low,i used to be out on my bike up the hills and now i cant get may arse in gear.hopefully it'll pass soon.good luck to you both,keep yer chin up....

 

[chez]

hi,i ahve also had problems tappering,i always feel depressed,quick tempered and sooo tired,its horrible,i think its because they make you feel so well at the start ,its a very big come down,i wish i could stay on a high does with no side affect,but i dont look to good with a mistashe hope you feel beta soon,,talk to your gp if you feel really bad ,good luck

 

[SdN]

I feel for you twois. I have been off of pred for just over 2 months now and I'm only just now getting over the side effects. To answer your questions the best I can:

a) is it reasonable/expected for there to be a 4 day delay in withdrawal symptoms?
I have noticed a delay in withdrawal symptoms after dropping my prednisone dose but for me it was usually 2 days after.

b) is it reasonable/expected for those symptoms to NOT go away quickly with reinstatement of the last well tolerated dose?
From my experience this wouldn't surprise me, in fact dropping your dose and then quickly increasing it again is probably a very bad idea. I tried doing just that and it made things much worse. I think the key with prednisone is to keep a steady dose and gradually decrease, I wouldn't ever jump between a low dose and a high dose again without giving my body time to stabilize.

c) is it reasonable/expected for symptoms to be dramatically worse at night if doses are taken@ 6-7am?
My best guess is it would depend on how high of a dose you were on. If your highest dose was 10mg then I wouldn't expect that but if your highest dose was like 60mg then I could see that happening.

I am in no way a doctor but I did just go through a rough course of Prednisone and am finalllyyy off of it. Good luck to you Prednisone can be real rough on you.