My last dose of Prednisone was on Friday. Right now I am so sore it's unreal. My elbow starting acting up last night making it hard to sleep, so that sucked. I've also noticed the swelling is coming back in my fingers. Ugh, just what I want. So, my question is, is this normal to feel so nasty after quitting Prednisone, even after just a 9 day course? My skin hurts like I have the flu, my ribcage, my legs..You get the idea.
Prednisone controlls inflammtion so if that was your only med or the others aren't working well the easily the symptoms can return after ending the drug.
Call your doctor and let him know that the symptoms recurred after finishing the pred pack
If you can stay away from this med, do it. It is bad bad bad. What otherLorster is right. My father-in-law has steroid induced bypolar and terrible osteoporosis from decades on prednisone. I have been on pred for a year because I had no diagnosis and was very ill. It seems like a life-saver to me, but still I am anxious to get off it.
Since I was dx in Feb my dr. has me on immuran (a dmard)and is trying to get me off pred. He added naproxen for the inflammation while the immuran gets going. Immuran is a toxic drug too but at least they can monitor me for problems and take me off it if need be-you can't really tell what damage the pred is doing. Are you taking anything else? Methotrexate and Plaquenil are both good for arthritis and relatively safe.
Laker
I too agree....predisone is good for short term use but the long term is what scare me. I refuse to take it anymore. I took it twice early on in my disease and after talking with my sis who is an RN, I decided not to take it anymore. Are you on any pain meds or any thing else? Get on the phone with the doc and see what other options he/she has.Take Care
I am still flabbergasted that my recent field eye exam before starting Plaquenil, had the opthamologist tell me he also didn't see any eye damage from the initial five months of Prednisone I was on. I will never take it again, had no idea it was so dangerous, and I honestly don't think it had any effect on my disease process or helped me in anyway.Eye damage? Hmmmm... what does it do? At my last eye exam the dr. said I had suddenly become hypertropic, one eye does not track properly so I had no depth perception. Prisms in the lens fixed me up but I wondered about it.He asked me a lot of questions which led me to think he felt it might be from the vasculitis. The pressure in that eye also went up to the top of the normal range.
Laker
I'm not on any other meds. My joint pain hasn't come back since stopping, but now I've got a whole new set of pain in my right side/back where my ribcage is.. I don't know if it's b/c of stopping the Prednisone and it's still getting out of my body, or if I acutally have another problem.There's your problem Shelley. No medication to fall back on an no plan moving forward.
I don't know your story please forgive me if you've gone through all this before. (That's why the signature line is so useful)
Have you been dx'ed with anything? Or are they still trying to see what's going on?
I was prescribed predisone upon my first visit to an RD. I was also dx'ed with RA upon my first visit. That same visit I was injected in both shoulders with cortisteriod. I was given sulfersalizine (A DMARD) as well as relifin which is an anti-inflammatory. I only took predisone for a couple weeks and by the time I was taken off the predisone the other meds had begun to work. That should be the ultimate goal when this medication is prescribed. When it's prescribed without a future plan you are only asking for trouble.
Please don't get in a place where you say "Oh, the predisone makes me feel so much better. I'll just take that....I can't make it without it." You'll regret that. You obviously have some sort of inflammatory arthritis or inflammatory condition that needs medication to control it. Predisone is a tempory fix that can cause long term side effects that you do not want!
Make a follow up appointment with your doctor asap.
Lovie, my doctor is still trying to figure out what is going on. I've had some odd symtpoms, but nothing is clicking together. My blood tests came back elevated inflammation for RA. I talked to him yesterday on the phone and he said to take Aleve for a couple days and if my pain didn't go away that I would have to do steriods for long term. I don't want to do that. Well, I don't want Prednisone long term for sure. So, I will see how I feel tomorrow and make an appointment with him if I have not made improvement.What kind of doctor are you seeing Sweetie? To be told "If Aleve doesn't work you will have to take steriods long term" is rediculous!He's just a regular family doctor that I've had since I was 3.Try and get a referral to a rheumy and see what a rheumy says. You for sure do not want steriods long term.
I know you have seen this doc for many many years and are probably very trusting in this doc and very comfy with him. But in this case, please seek a 2nd opinion. Not all pcp docs are knowledgeable about what to do about ra like symptoms and usually refer to a rheumy.
If you are testing for RA or have an elevated sed rate you should see a rheumatologist. I went through 18 months of doctoring before I got a diagnosis and in the meantime damage was done. Autoimmune diseases are so complex and hard to diagnose, you need a specialist.
You still might wind up on the prednisone for a while to get things under control quickly and until another drug can kick in. Nothing else worked for me initially and I was having cognitive problems from the inflammation. Avoid prednisone if you possibly can, but sometimes there is no choice. I would rather be on pred than unable to remember the names of my kids and unable to say what I mean because I can't put together a sentence. Scary stuff.
Press hard to get an appt. soon. Most rheums will try to get in new patients quickly if they are having problems.
Laker
Shelly--I definitely agree with Laker and Grandma Skittles--you need to be seeing a Rheumatologist. Please work on getting a referral as soon as possible. I'm lucky in that my GP referred me to a Rheumy almost immediately--even though I don't have a positive RA factor--just lots of swelling. Rheumatologists are the experts and that's who you should be seeing. Since you have a positive RA factor, and pain/swelling came back after getting off the Prednisone, it's a good indication that you have RA or something similar.