HELP!!!

Ask your doctor to prescribe you 1mg pills. When you get to the point that withdrawal symptoms begin switch to the 1mg pills, then taper down by 1mg at a time. If you like, you can divide the pills in half to make the dose even smaller. Stay on the new dose for at least a week before attempting to reduce again, but if symptoms come back go back up to the previous dose and stay on it for another week.

A lot of steroid tapers are done too fast, imo. But it is possible to get off Prednisone if you go slowly enough. For whatever it's worth, I just brute-forced my way through the withdrawal symptoms the last time I came off pred, but I didn't have two kids to look after. They passed for me and they will for you too - it's not a permanent thing.

Mburgan,

Withdrawal symptoms can last a short time or a loooong time. For me.....I had to call my doctor and get 1, 5, and 10 mg pills. I went from 10 to 5 to 2.5 to 1.25 to 1 and then started cutting the 1 mg in fourths. Went down one fourth every work. Even with the taper I wasmoody for 4 months. It took 6 months for the moon face to go down. The weight.....still here....

But you may be different.

Good luck and hang in there.

Clo

Totally agree with NCOT,

You will need to taper much more slowly. Even if you can't get the pills in a smaller dosage, you can resort to breaking them in half or quarters.

The symptoms can last a few weeks, and it can take 6 months or so, to get your cortisol back up again. The moon face and weight gain will improve fairly quickly, so not really a concern. Prednisone can give you an incredible appetite, so you'll start eating less when you're off of it.

More importantly, it sounds like your GI is the problem. You might want to consider another GI. Are you transitioning to other maintenance meds once you're off of Prednisone?

Be very careful and taper slowly. Tapering too quickly or stopping immediately can be life threatening.

I was on steroids for 9 months and just couldn't seem to get off them. My gi doc had me taper in 1 month and that caused me to crash and could have killed me. I developed secondary adrenal insufficiency which is the equivalent of Addison's Disease. My adrenal glans never woke up and my endocrinologist was surprised I wasn't in the hospital given how bad a shape I was in. I've since had a few adrenal crises and have been hospitalized. I'm still taking steroids a year later. I can't taper off until I get into Crohn's remission. I am taking a low dose similar to what body produces when you are healthy which is about 5 mg of prednisone or 20 mg of hydrocortisone.