Hello-
My son is slowly tapering his prednisone. He's now in the territory where things can get hairy (from what I understand). He's at 10mg and feeling crummy. Do any of you have any suggestions of ways to mitigate the effects of tapering of prednisone? We do not want to up the prednisone!!!
Thanks!
Hello. My fiancé tapered off from 20 after being on that dosage, daily, for maybe 5 years. It took a toll on him coming down. We went very, very slow. I believe it was around 5 mg he began to feel the effects, tender muscles, loss of appetite, and extreme fatigue. He did salt baths at night, I’d rub his back, feet, head, etc… And he slept a lot. I wouldn’t say he was miserable, but he was complaining. He’s a trooper. We expected the come down to be worse from what we read online. However, after, he has body aches and joint pain worse then during the tapering period. He’ll go for massages and continues the salt baths for relaxation at night. The benefits after getting that heavy drug out of his body out weight the difficult period of tapering off. Just keep a quiet space for your son to nap, have him drink a lot of electrolytes and water, and encourage him to stay stress free/without tension in his body. I’d like point out, we started juicing right as he was coming off the prednisone. He now insists he has a juice daily as it has helped with his immune system, blood work and he feels a natural energy. We typically juice kale, turmeric, celery, beet, cucumber, lemon, apple, mint and ginger. Best of luck with your son. Xo. -A
Hello,
Possibly he is tapering too fast. The Dr may find it useful to check the level of cortisol in the blood. Everyone is different, and taper schedules are set depending on how long a person has been on pred. My first taper stopped at 5 and I experienced adrenal suppression. Fortunately 3 months later an endocrinologist stepped in and immediately gave me a dosage of pred warranted by my condition, and I tapered slowly to .5 mg with success. I had not been feeling well from 10mg to 5 mg and no one knew why. I'll keep in touch to hear how this goes for your son. I hope this helps.
Blessings,
BB
Thanks BB and Gloria-
Hearing these details help. There's so much on the internet about how it is difficult to taper and why, but not much about how to make it as painless as possible, short of upping the dose. I don't think he's tapering too quickly - the doc has been very careful about it and has been doing it in conjunction with weekly blood work. He's been tapering 2.5mg every two weeks, when the blood work looks good. At some levels it has taken a little longer than two weeks to be ready for the next taper.
My son is a swimmer and all he wanted to do with his summer is train (after a miserable spring season of PSC diagnosis and meds and too many doctor appointments, procedures, and being ill). He's so bummed when he simply doesn't feel well enough to get himself out there, and I think he feels that he doesn't have the necessary will power. So knowing that others struggle with this certainly will help him face it and not feel guilty about it. He went from 12.5mg to 10mg on Friday. He had terrible headaches over the weekend -resorting to pain killers, which he really hates - and then M, T, W wasn't able to keep to his schedule at all and needed lots of sleep. He's been having insomnia at night too. This morning, I woke to find he had already left for his morning swim workout, so hopefully he's through the worst of it for this round and he can settle in to this dose before the next decrease. We want him off this drug so badly, yet we have mixed feelings about each decrease because we know he's going to struggle for a while....
Thanks again.. anybody else have any experience to share?
Mention Prednisone and all I've got to say is, "Ugh!" I have been on it many times, and it always got better when I got below 10mg daily. My doctors always tapered me very slowly like this: 10mg one day. 5mg the next day. 10mg the next day, etc., for a week so that the average was 7.5mg in your system. If no flare-up's of the condition occurred, he would have me take 10mg, 5mg, 5mg, 10mg, 5mg, 5mg, 5mg, for the next week. If no flare-up's, he would take me down 5mg for a week and then 5mg every other day for a week and then stop completely. Like I said, I always felt better when I got below 10mg. Hope you have a good experience, too.
Interesting Paul. I will see what doctor thinks about this. Sadly, we just got blood work back, and my son's moving back up to 15mg for the time being. So bummed after he fought the adjustment from 15 to 12.5 then again from 12.5 to 10. Sigh! Oh, well, better than needing to back up to 60!!
Paul Hain said:
Mention Prednisone and all I've got to say is, "Ugh!" I have been on it many times, and it always got better when I got below 10mg daily. My doctors always tapered me very slowly like this: 10mg one day. 5mg the next day. 10mg the next day, etc., for a week so that the average was 7.5mg in your system. If no flare-up's of the condition occurred, he would have me take 10mg, 5mg, 5mg, 10mg, 5mg, 5mg, 5mg, for the next week. If no flare-up's, he would take me down 5mg for a week and then 5mg every other day for a week and then stop completely. Like I said, I always felt better when I got below 10mg. Hope you have a good experience, too.
Checking in... How is your son doing?
- A