pains getting worse with prednisone taper?

so i was really excited about dropping to 20mg saturday. it seems since then my pain has increased. could it be a coincidence or could it be the extra stress i have going on right now? saturday i didn't eat much and took 2 vicodin. yesterday was a miserable day, i picked at food throughout the day, took 1 and 1/2 vics and i am not even sure it helped all that much. last night i had an awful time trying to get comfortable and i have had an all over soreness in my abdomen along with lovely sharp pains.

what do you guys think? any similar experiences? could stress be making my pain worse or is my body looking for more prednisone? or maybe i am just having a couple of bad days :/ i am going to see my gi tomorrow (YAY!), should i talk to him about something stronger for pain?

thanks again for MORE help you guys!

ps ...HOW about THEM FREAKIN RED SOX!? AHHHH! it's a good day to be a sox fan :D

Im going through the exact same thing right now, only I cant get below 30 mg/day. My whole abdomen gets sore and a little prickly? Even at 30, things are not super. Im going to chat with the GI this week hopefully.

If you can't taper off the prednisone without your symptoms returning, you probably need to go up a tier of medications to 6MP or Imuran. I would do it while on the prednisone because it takes a long time to kick in. It's definitely something you need to talk to your doctor about. Your doctors may even want you to try Remicade or Humira because usually they work quicker, though personally, I'd give the other drugs a try first.

No, I don't think it is stress. 20 mg is a turning point on pred.

It is exactly the point where you might start having problems because at that point your body has to kick in and start doing something that pred was doing, before. You might have to slow down on the pred taper, by 2.5 mg weekly.

OR you could try using Entocort to help you taper off pred...my daughter tapered successfully of pred by introducing Entocort when she was at 20 mg. Taper schedule"

week 1: 1 pill Entocort, 20 mg pred

week 2: 2 pills Entocort, 15 mg pred

week 3: 2 pills Entocort, 10 mg pred

week 4: 2 pills Entocort, 5 mg pred

week 5: 3 pills Entocort (full dose), 0 mg pred

I'm in the same boat as you, i'm at 35mg now, and taping at 2.5mg a week. I get really bad pain in my legs, stomach cramps, and very tired.
It last for 3-4 days but by the time I feel better it's time to go down again and it's all over again the same thing. Hang in there :)

I've been on pred for 4 weeks now, started at 40mg for a week went into ER after 5 days, really bad leg pain, I couldn't walk, and kept fallling down and they told me to up the dose to 50mg, I felt worse, went to GI doc, he told me to start going down 2.5mg every week and start at 40mg now as I was only on 50mg for a few days. So i'm at 35mg now, 32.5mg on Friday. It's a horrible drug but it helps somewhat. How are u holding up today?