Hi everybody,
I'm currently taking 60mg prednisone my doctor prescribed to see if it would do me any good for hip pain I've been experiencing. I'm supposed to take it for 15 days, but so far all i have experienced are side effects and the hip pain hasn't eased even a bit. It's pretty much worse now that I have to deal with almost unbearable pain and can’t sleep almost at all. Whatever I eat I end up with terrible heartburn and pain similar to gallbladder attack. I already called my doctor and said I don't want to take prednisone any more – I just can't take one more week of this. But he told me I need to finish my treatment by tapering down for the following week, taking 10mg less each day. That just means I'll continue to have side-effects, so can i stop prednisone cold turkey?
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It's important that you taper off. You could end up with prednisone withdrawal symptoms that could be worse than the side effects that you are experiencing. Tapering off is what gives your adrenal glands time to resume their normal functioning. Your adrenals decrease their natural cortisol production while you take prednisone, because prednisone is very similar to cortisol. If you stopped taking it without tapering off, your adrenals aren't ready to resume their full production, which may result in severe fatigue, body aches, joint pain and weakness that may feel like you've been hit with a sudden bout of the flu. You may not fully recover for weeks while your adrenals understand they need to make and secrete cortisol again.
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