What is the longest you took prednisone?

I have taken it for 3 months the longest I was ever on it. For the insomnia you might want to make sure you are taking it as early in the day as possible.

I just took my last wean dose on Sunday after being on for 3 months. I'm a bit fatigued, but yes is did give me enough help to keep afloat.

Hopefully this won't last much longer.

I've been on and off pred since 1998 for up to 1.5 years at a time. Did that twice while pregnant, on maintenance dose 12.5 mg., then took my time weening while breastfeeding.

Oh, and I hate the side effects (insomnia, bottomless pit stomach—actually I like that one, osteoporosis, etc), but I don't find it disturbs my moods too severely.

Thanks guys for the replies. I guess what I should do is get a bone test done to know for certain where I am at in that department. They thought it was such a wonder drug in the late 50's early 60's somewhere round there. People who couldnt walk were gone for morning runs in a week often less. I can only imagine how great it seemed even with the quicker side effects like moon face, insomnia, etc. Then eventually these people started falling apart, ah the joys of testing new drugs. If it had less side effects especially long term ones, it really would be a miracle drug for me. So frustrating if I had been on prednisone 30mg scratch that hek even 20mg for the last 9 years my butt wouldnt be half as bad and using the washroom wouldnt be nearing as impossible as it is. Its frustrating. I dont know what to do to slow it other than the pred.


Benisone - Thats a long time. I feel for you and hope you find that drug! They are doing a study phase 3 I believe at my clinic right now for something called (MLN0002). Maybe that will be the next big thing like the remicade humira etc.

sudsmom - Wow! Good chunk of time as well. Glad that you havnt suffered any ill effects from it.

Roni - We joined the same month and year ha. We are old school healingwell : )

CrohnsPatient - Makes me wanna take 20 for the next two years. heh. Its so tricky though some people get messed up really fast from it compared to others.

Yea Ive never eve herad of anyone taking 120mg or even 100mg, Ive heard of just a few taking 80mg though, I myself 60mg is perfect when i'm really needing it.

for me, I have alot of rectal area issues and have for years, had 25 to 30 reectal abcesses and my rectum removed and all, and I still have fistulas which i'm getting 'cored' out by plastic surgery one at a time, my GI in Richmond at VCU checks up on it all the time, and he calls it 'Crohns butt' a highly technical term I might add. He is a great doctor, he weighs the good and bad when putting me on or keeping me on something. For me, every time I've gone off of prednisone in the past I have begun to flare and ended up admitted into hospital every single time. But whats strange is I believe your body makes the equavelent of somewhere around 15mg thats why when your get to around 20mg or so a lot of doctors tend to taper slower to let the body kick in instead of almost having like a 'dumping' from the entire body. But you know for the last year Ive been to where I can take 5mg and as long as I stay on my 5mg then I havent flared to bad, even though had 3 minor flares past year, but thats not really bad, if i went off of that 5mg I would immediatly flare liek within a week or so. So even though it has my 'crohns butt' healing very slowly, its a positive for me as a whole, I cant come off just to heal my butt faster when its going to heal anyway, plus we dont know if it would heal that much faster because of the disease process and methotrexate and such so its a big risk in my case.

Ive never had my eyes checked altho I see good, atleast I think I do lol, I do know my eyes used to be much better, I could read small print on ads on tv and such and signs much farther away, do you think I should be getting my eyes checked? I have medicare and I hardly doubt they will cover anything eye related, they also wont cover dentist either(altho I did get info sent to me from a company, idk where they got my name, probably from a random list of names they bought from a seller, but they called and i was about to hang up on them when i thought well i can see how much it is, and if I remember correctly it only came to like 6 or 8 dollars a month for me to get dental coverage which covered everything like cavities and a little more serious stuff, and when it got to like oral surgery or anything it still covered 80% i think it was, which is really really not bad, so I'm weighing whether I should go ahead and get it and get my teeth looked out especially since someone mentioned prednisone can affect the teeth? I've never heard that on here or from a doctor, Ive only heard about the eyes once from my old local GI and on here).

So does any of you think it would be worth it for me to pay to see a dentist and just do like a teeth cleaning, and pay out of pocket 100% to see an eye doctor?, I might could hold off on the dentist until I decide whther to get coverage... any opinions on getting dental coverage? would it be worth it? I also remember they paid 100% of all 'routine' minded htings like 2 teeth cleanings a year and that stuff, it was only the more expensive that I would have co-pays. So to me it sounded a good idea if its no more then $8 a month and thats the truth with no hidden fees. I'm also a little afraid of what I'll find at the eye dr or dentist. Ive never had a cavity in my lifetime and I'm 26. Also my wisdom teeth are completely in on the bottom and their halfway in on the top, I have no pain or real problems from them, has anyone ever NOT had to have their wisdom teeth removed? I'm seriously really scared of anything besides teeth cleaning at the dentist Im really scared for any drilling or cutting I'm scared of the needle to numb me.

My being scared isn't because 'everyone is scared of the dentist', it comes from when I was in 4th grade I had a abcess on my left side of my mouth on the bottom gum show up practically over night, I had to have it numbed up alll the time, constatly seeing dentists and specialists like oral surgeons and ENT doctors, no one could figure out why i was getting them, altho some of my doctors Ive seen think it might have been early signs of crohns disease. Well twice I was scheduled for surgery on a morning and both times I would go to sleep with a big big abcess on my jaw and wake up with absolutely nothing there, it would literally dissappear over night and none of the dentists or surgeons knew what coudl happen to it to just go away, they knew it was drainable because they had pulled some out with syringe, but it didnt drain cuz obviously i would have woke up to puss filling my mouth I dont think many people if anyone could sleep through thick puss(spelling?) in their mouth lol. The 2nd time that it happend and dissapeared, it just didnt come back, and this went on for like 2 or 3 months trying to find out what it was and cutting and numbing and shots and just I dont like it, it hurts and I cant and wont even watch those horror movies about the crazy dentists that do awful stuff to the patients i cant even think about it right now.

60mgs for about 5 years was my longest continuous time. back in the 80's when thats all there was.

hey sooper,, yep im still around as are a few more from the good old days of site restart... '02 ? doing as well as one can i suppose...

Randy, your a trooper man.

Roni, it has been a long time. It trips me out. : )