Prednisone withdrawal? | Arthritis Information

 

I tried on Monday to reduce my daily dose of pred from 50mg to 45mg and when I woke up Tuesday I felt like total crap.  Sort of dizzy with fatigue and ruthless nausea.  I tried my best to work through it but it was terrible.  I had to go back up by wed to see if what was happening would begin to ease up.  It really didn't start to ease up until yesterday and I was told by my RD and several docs in the ER that a cut that small at the high dose I'm on wouldn't produce withdrawal symptoms.  Now if I had done something like 50mg to 30mg that would have dropped a bomb on me.

That sounds like something different.  What did the ER dr. say?  Could they give you a reason for the weakness?  I would definitely be concerned. 

I don't think the reduction by 1mg would make any difference here either but I'm perfectly willing to try it that way.  I'm with Rebecca here, it sounds like something different going on.  The problem is that no doctors can come up with anything.  I was told that I have an ear infection by an ER doc wednesday afternoon.  I think ear infections can cause nausea and dizziness.  The steroids are probably where the weakness is coming from though. 

Weakness is a side effect of steriod usage.  The problem is, we are all just guessing here.  Can you see the dr. again?  True, my RD did say that it is the reducing at the lower dosages that cause the problem.  Basically, at the higher amounts, you are still putting more cortisol into your body than it normally makes.  So, when reducing, you still have enough in your system.  When you get to the lower levels, your body needs to start producing its own.  So you have to take it slowly.  That being said, each person does react differently. Nope and he'd be totally clueless if he were there anyway.  I'm kind of following the same train of thought that you are.  I was told that your body makes about 5 to 10mg of cortisol naturally depending on the situation.  That being said, 50mg is still 10x more than you need so it makes sense that you'll still have more than enough even if you reduce the dose by 5mg per day.  I think it's going to come down to just having to fight through this with some help from phenergran  (spelling?) for nausea. Bob, I will tell you something. I was rushed to hostipal 1/1/09 I and may husband got the flu both ways and by morning I was rushed to hostipal. Not knowing what was going on. I was on 20mg of predisone for almost 2-1/2 years now. But when I got sick I was unable to keep anything in . So I lost all my meds to keep me stable. I ended up with 60mg predisone and tons of other meds hanging from bed until I came to. it was scary I lost 2 days not knowing what was going on. And now I have to get a stress test and other test after I recover from this. I hate predisone it is killing me in one way and helping me the other. I am suffering now from very high blood pressure that does not want to come down because of the predisone. So they are going to get me off 20 more mgs. I will start tommorow. I know I will feel like i was hit by a truck but it's either end up with a stroke from high blood pressure or heart attack. They now think something happenend when was was bought in because of my blood gases. So now I hve to face all the test in a month as soon as I recover from all of this. So the sooner you get off the stuff get off.IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO MUCH PAIN AND SUFFERING. TAKE CARE JOANActually, that's the one part of weaning that I'm not seeing much difference in is the RA itself.  From 80mg all the way to 50mg not much difference in the RA.  I think 35mg is very possible in terms of not seeing a return in RA symptoms to anything major.  I still have lots of pain and stiffness but the pred is knocking out most of the inflammation which is good but not good enough to stay on the stuff any longer.  I aim to be at a "safe" dose by spring come hell or high water.Bob,
        Have a chat to Cordelia. She was on high doses of this stuff without much gain.

You really are having a bad trot at the moment.

I wish pain free days ahead of you.


Bob - I really feel for you and totally understand.  I did a doctor ordered, 2-week weanoff of Pred, which was an overly harsh weanoff schedule, and was only at my initial dosage of 5 a day, for five months.  It was horrifying, and I don't know how I did it, but once I missed the first dose and the withdrawal symptoms started, I was determined to get off this drug and never get on it again.  Not once did I even think about starting it back up again during those 2 weeks to stop the withdrawal symptoms. Hey Bob, I am just weaning off an 80mg dose after this double dose pneumonia thing.  I have felt like doggy doo!  I love/hate pred. and I never want to be on it again.  I am sorry you are feeling so bad and I hope things get better soon and we are both off the pred. soon! By the by, my mom was on an 80mg dose for a Lupus condition several years ago.  She was 71 at the time.  She suffered steroid psychosis, a condition not uncommon in elderly patients, I was told by the pulmonolgist she was seeing.  She spoke "word salad" and continued to do so for the 6 weeks it took to get her off the steroids. 

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