symptoms of predisone withdrawl

I have been on prednisone for eight and a half years for temporal arteritis. I don't think much research has been done and the rheumatologists just don't know what else to do but prescribe prednisone. I was down to two and a half mg. of prednisone for a year or more and when she called to tell me that she had looked at a Pet Scan ordered by another doctor (oncologist) and said the aorta is inflamed and to increasethe prednisone to 50 mg. I knew better so why did I increase it, not to 50 but I did go up to 25 mg against my better judgement. . I'm reducing it by two and a half mg every two weeks. I have stage 4 non small cell lung cancer and just started to take tarceva about two and half weeks ago. I feel terrible. I knew I should never have increased that prednisone, so why did I do it? I felt fine before I did and was enjoying life.but this doctor told me I could lose my sight and/or develop an aneurysm. I have very little energy, very little motivation, I sleep most of the time in the daytime and am awake a lot at night, my skin is so dry from the tarceva that my skin around my fingernails is cracking and sore, my lips are dry and cracked, too and mouth is sore.  Everything I try to eat burns my mouth and tongue. At this point what's the difference if I go from lung cancer or an aortal aneurysm. Who ever said get a second opinion you're 100% right on! I'm so sick and disgustsed right now I'm kicking myself all over the place.

my partner just weened off - and experienced severe allergic responses to our cat - is this common?
He was somewhat bothered by felines prior to going on prednisone but now... it is horrific.
He couldn't breathe and we had to find her a new home ... what the heck?

was your reaction to animals in the house worse after you came off prednisone?

i have been on steroids since i was 18. when i was diagnosed with A.L.L i recieved a BMT (bone marrow transplant) a when i was twenty one. when they did this my steroids went even higher. up to 250 mg it was crazy. choking them down with a hundred others pills drove me insane. but i did it. i am now 27 i am just getting off my steroids. we have been tapering them down for years but i was at 80 to 100 mg for years til i was 24. every time i got lower i got what was call GVHD aka graft vs host disease. i would be sick as a dog and my mouth would get sores or would be so sensitive that i could only eat yogurt. and only yogurt. even stuff like tomato sauce was to spicy for my mouth. so i would see my bmt specialist who would raise my prednisone back up to 80 or 100 until the symptoms went down and then we would start tapering agaian. i got to a point were i could not get below 50 mg i was at that for 3 years and my dr even said i may never come off of them because the GVHD.i could not believe it. since i have been on it i have had multiple joint issues in my knees ankles shoulders elbows and the worst has been my hips. I had a full left hip replacement at 23. and the rest of the joints are just slowly falling apart. 

now that i am off of the steroids it has been almost 3 weeks. about 2 weeks ago  i started having joint pain and muscle pain at first i thought nothing of it. i mean i went for a 3 mile walk that i had been doing for 2 years now almost 3 times a week and when i got home i had no energy and my body hurt but i figured you know 3 mile probably just tired out. well the next morning my ankle was huge just swollen up and i could barely walk. it was as if i sprained it. well i knew i get hurt easily my body has been threw hell since i got cancer so i blew it off not thinking much of it. the next day my ankle was still bad but a sprain you know takes time to heal especially for me. but not only my anke hurt my elbow joints wrist knees and finger joints hurt. i felt like i was hit by a bus.  i kinnda thought it was the walk though like i said i have been doing this for a while and weekly so i have been optimistic. well a week went by but i was still hurting. i talked to my wife and she says it might be coming off the steroids. but i had never heard that before. so i blew her off too. well now we are at 2 weeks and every day is like damn im falling apart. i hurt from my shoulders to the tips of my toes. i think it is time to talk to my DR cuz this is nuts. 

i would like to say thank you to every one that has shared there stories. it really has helped me get an idea on wehat is causeing the problems.really thank you. and to any one that may want to know i have been in remission from my cancer for 5 years now. and also to those with cataracts im with you there to i started noticing my sight going  and getting worse every year and sure enough i got my eyes done and bam i had cataracts  

and i talked to my DR and sure enough its the steroids. she said they can start me on a low dose or i can wait it out. yay such fun...so bummed

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing your stories. 

I was on 45mg Prednisolone for 6 days last week (Friday-Thursday) to treat alopecia areata (hair loss). I was also seeing a chinese medicine doctor drinking herbal stuff and he told me to get off it after finishing the course. My skin doc gave me another 3 weeks supply of Prednisolone but I stopped taking them after the initial 6 days. I knew there could be withdrawal symptoms, but didn't imagine it could be so bad...

Last night, I had vomit+diarrhea, fever, chills and high blood pressure. Luckily panadol (that managed to stay in my system) worked. But I'm still having diarrhea and vomiting with all the food I'm taking. Lost 2kg overnight (including the 1kg I gained after 6 days of medicine).

Very determined to stay off and pray my body can withstand this abrupt stop. Tapering sounds so miserable. 

I have been on Prednisone since 7/31/2012. I was diagnosed with Polymyalgia Rheumatica. I was unable to lift my arms, could barely walk, and couldn't sleep because the pain was so bad. I was taking 20 mg a day. I'd cut it down to 10 mg a day, but it seems when my stress level increases, so does my pain level. I go back up. I look in the mirror now and my face and neck are so puffy I feel like I have a basketball for a head. I've gained 10 pounds and my blood pressure has gone up. So, I've decided to cut back again. I'm going down to 5 mg per day and hopefully will be able to get completely off of them. I've got to get my eyes checked. My vision has changed in my left eye. Is there any other treatment that anyone has found to work that is not as damaging? I would love to use vitamins or herbs that would be more healthy.

Ever considered FMF? Check this out. It helped me figure out a long time mystery

Hi Joanne I was presribed Steroids for PolyMyalgia Rheumatica I have been on them for 18 months gradually reducing after initial 6 weeks on 15 mg. I am now on 2 mg due to reduce to 1 mg 1st February. At the moment I feel tired a lot I have pain in my muscles in arms and legs. the last blood test showed everything normal except my adrenal glands are only at about two thirds what they should be. Am due for another synacthen test in April will have to wait and see what that says. No doctor has ever told me I would suffer withdrawal symptoms. Wendy

I have been taking prednisone for 9 years for the treatment of generalized myasthenia gravis. I started out at 100mg per day and am currently taking 25mg per day. At times i have been bumped up to as much as 80mg to knock out the symptoms. i have not experienced the negative side effects that some people have mentioned. i have been told that i could face severe bone loss. bone density studies have not found this to be evident. i do have the moon face, but that is about it. prednisone has been a life saving drug for me. do not stop taking or refuse to take if recommended. i believe the reaction to the moon face, especially among women, is the cause of most dissatisfaction which then leads to other psychological troubles. all drugs may react somewhat differently from person to person. with the steroids i would have been dead long ago. AND... do not stop abruptly. my neurologist says that 10mg and below are more or less bening as to long term effects on the body. sleepless nights are worth putting up with.

I too had polymyalgia for which I was prescribed prednisalone. I am now at 1mg having slowly weaned off them as my doctors have told me. But now I feel almost as bad as when I had polymyalgia except my blood tests disprove this. I am tired all of the time, I have aches and pains everywhere. The docs didn,t tell me this would happen only that it would take time, what I would like to know is how much time.

Guest: It took me three months to reduce my daily Prednisone dose from 1mg to 0.  During this time, I suffered pain and weakness in my knees, ankles, feet, and wrists, so perhaps I reduced too rapidly.  After I stopped taking Prednisone altogether, the withdrawal symptoms intensified but I never went back on the drug.  It then took another nine months before I felt good again. Now, one full year after stopping Prednisone, all my aches and pains are just a horrible memory.  I hope my experience can be of some use to you, although it appears that the time it takes for one's adrenals to recover varies a lot, and age is probably an important factor (I am in my early 70s).

Its not rational.Typically tapering needs if the asthma patient has taken the medication prednisolone for more than 3 days. The main reason for a gradual taper is that patients may develop symptoms of steroid (prednisone) withdrawal. These symptoms include: -joint pain -muscle pain -fatigue -headache -fever -low blood pressure -nausea and vomiting Abrupt discontinuation of treatment in patients who have been on steroids for a prolonged period of time may cause severe symptoms due to the fact the normal production of steroids by the body has been turned off. -Adrenal crisis -Exogeneous adrenalinsufficiancy *As the prednisolone is corticosteroid ,and all the corticosteroids supress the HPAA function (Hypothelmic pituitary adrenal axis and graduall decrease in dose gives time to adrenal gland to return back to its normal pattern of secretions. so tappering requires for asthma patient taking prednisolone.

Hi I am now at the point of stopping prednisalone at the end of this month March I am on 1mg at the moment. I tried last week to go without altogether I managed it for 3 days then the symptoms got worse and I had to take them again. I don't know how to get off them. I am scared because last year due to a water infection I had what was diagnosed by a consultant professor at our local hospital an adrenal crisis apparently I should have doubled the dose while I had the infection but nobody told me, he said I could have died if the ambulance men who fetched me had't put me on a drip of something or other.I didn't know what was happening I was out of it.

Hello, to all who use Prednisone or what ever it is called you have my greatest respect. I had an alogenic transplant in Aug 2004 for CLL (Leukaemia) and low grade Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I have at various times had to take huge doses of the stuff, up 150 mg per day and a further 50 mg. of Deximethasone (another steroid!) all at once for up to 2 or three months at a time! Yuk, felt like I was dying but did come down to what is now a maintenance dose of 10 mg. per day of Pred.. This too was for GVHD aka Graft vs Host Disease. It only just holds it along with my Cellcept and have to increase it from time to time in short bursts. I feel very tired and worn out most of the time and often get bad aches for no apparent reason. I will never get off the stuff. If you can get of it, well and good but it is very difficult if not impossible after being on it for any length of time I was told by my Professor. Eight years in my case!

 

Very best wishes to all.