Lupus Support Group

Reducing steroids should be done slowly at the lower stages.
Say you started at 40mg, 30mg might come next, but then 25, 20 15 and perhaps 1 mg per fortnight from there.
If you come down too quickly, symptoms can flare. This is true of crohn's anyway, so I'm sure the same here.

Hi Lukas,
I am currently on a Predisone taper. I was put on it at high doses when I was in the hospital for a pretty bad flare. The high doses were amazing for the pain and inflammation. (aside for side effects like nervesnous and anxiety) My pain was literaly gone. Until I tapperd down to 10mg-the pain was back for me. I continued with my tapper --despite the pain--I am coming down 2.5 mg at a time. I stayed at 7.5 for about a week, then 5 for another week and now Im at 2.5--its been about 2 weeks and I haven't gone any lower-because I'm back to feeling even more pain. But yes, eveytime I tapperd down--Id get pain-for me its in my legs and arms.
Since I started Methdrexate 3 weeks ago----I feel this is helping me. I have made myself brave enough to continue with the Predisone tapper. Why? Well despite the pain (that I have been feeling since I went down to 10mg of Pred.) I personaly want to be off the Predisone. I know it helped me, and is probably still helping if only a bit. BUT--for me, I am desperate to be off. I am not very good at being on meds. Will only take then if I really need them, and to me--if I have pain on 10 mg. of predisone and I dont want to increase it at this time---I will just continue with my tapper--Today I will pick up my new prescription of 1 mg. of Predisone pills. I am going to try 1 1/2 does per day, until I can hopefully get off. Wish me luck, and I wish you luck with the tapper.
It has been very tough for me--I cant wait to be Predisone free!- I love the little drug for making me walk again--but I hate it because I dont want to rely on it forever and worry about the side effects. God knows I have enough to worry about. Dont we all?
Well Lukas, take care and best to you.
Hugs,
Maribel

I am with ya i can't wait to be Prednisone free :) I am actually feeling much better today no pain and stiffness so i am going to keep tapering off. I didn't know they had 1 mg tablets ia m going to ask for a script for those ones i have the 5 mg ones and next week when i start to go down by one its really hard to cut that little pill up LOL

It helps to understand about steroids and our bodies to understand what happened in your case. Under normal conditions, our bodies make 10 mg of something equivalent to prednisone. When we take large doses for more than 2 weeks, our bodies say, "Hey, someone's giving this to us, we don't have to make it any more! Yahoo!" and our bodies STOP making it.

So until you get to the 10 mg level, the steroids are EXTRA for our body. By when we go BELOW 10 mg, our bodies have to start making steroids again and that's a slow process, like trying to get a turtle to move faster. So you have to drop your dose in teeny-tiny amounts and give your body a chance to make up the difference. And you will hurt some; our bodies loved the cushier gig where they didn't have to make the steroids and our bodies balk like mules. So you have to go very slowly. The faster you go, the more your body will react angrily.

Now, those 1 mg. tabs can be cut into 1/2s and 1/4s if necessary. You won't get a prize for being the fastest at your taper. [g] The idea is to go so slowly that you won't hurt too much.

I'm often surprised at how many docs, rheumies included, don't take a steroid taper very seriously. I wish they all had to do it just once so they'd understand that it hurts like hell if done too fast.

Hope this helps, Lukas.

Tracy

One addendum: the pain is not because your other drugs aren't working. It's your body's reaction to the lack of steroids. This pain will go away.

In some cases, though, patients aren't ready to taper because of the extent of their disease and disease can flare. And it's hard to tell the difference between taper pain and disease pain. Taper pain is more joint pain, lots of achiness and not much else.

Tracy