Hi there, been off the Pred for three weeks now and have been really struggling with bouts of strong lightheadedness. Was just wondering if this is a relatively common thing?
For about the first month of the Pred (40mg, then tapering by 5mg every week) I was dizzy a lot, especially after any sort of physical activity with even just a walk to the shops tending to send my head spinning for hours. My GI said that this is something that can happen. It gradually improved as I tapered and seemed to be pretty much gone until the last couple of days on the drug when suddenly it came back full force just when I felt like I was getting back to something like 'normal' with everything. Again, I mentioned this to my GI a week or so ago and he said it could well be my body having to adjust to being without the Pred as it had to adjust to being on it with the same symptom. Sounds plausable but obviously the longer it goes on (and apparently without much improvement this time) the more it's worrying me!
The other possiblity I can see is that it's anxiety-related as the Pred and/or diagnosis has really brought back the severe anxiety and panic attacks I used to suffer from a lot, though I never really had such pronounced bouts of dizziness with them. It doesn't feel like it quite correlates to me as consciously it does feel like I'm reacting to the dizziness with anxiety rather than it being the cause but who knows what's going on behind the scenes!
The fact that I seem to have no trouble having panic attacks with my heart racing etc. etc. makes me think it's probably not my adrenals struggling to kick back in, so at least there's that.
I saw my GP about it a couple of weeks back and she prescribed Prochlorperzine to help it but it doesn't seem to have had any real effect. She's gonna check me out for labyrinthitis and some sort of crazy-sounding 'ear crystals' tommorow so we'll see if that brings any answers.
Anyone had any similar experiences coming off the Pred, especially lasting this long?
For about the first month of the Pred (40mg, then tapering by 5mg every week) I was dizzy a lot, especially after any sort of physical activity with even just a walk to the shops tending to send my head spinning for hours. My GI said that this is something that can happen. It gradually improved as I tapered and seemed to be pretty much gone until the last couple of days on the drug when suddenly it came back full force just when I felt like I was getting back to something like 'normal' with everything. Again, I mentioned this to my GI a week or so ago and he said it could well be my body having to adjust to being without the Pred as it had to adjust to being on it with the same symptom. Sounds plausable but obviously the longer it goes on (and apparently without much improvement this time) the more it's worrying me!
The other possiblity I can see is that it's anxiety-related as the Pred and/or diagnosis has really brought back the severe anxiety and panic attacks I used to suffer from a lot, though I never really had such pronounced bouts of dizziness with them. It doesn't feel like it quite correlates to me as consciously it does feel like I'm reacting to the dizziness with anxiety rather than it being the cause but who knows what's going on behind the scenes!
The fact that I seem to have no trouble having panic attacks with my heart racing etc. etc. makes me think it's probably not my adrenals struggling to kick back in, so at least there's that.
I saw my GP about it a couple of weeks back and she prescribed Prochlorperzine to help it but it doesn't seem to have had any real effect. She's gonna check me out for labyrinthitis and some sort of crazy-sounding 'ear crystals' tommorow so we'll see if that brings any answers.
Anyone had any similar experiences coming off the Pred, especially lasting this long?