HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Saw a temp doc and he contradicted my doc, what to do?

Support Forums
>
Crohn's Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 1/21/2012 8:57 AM (GMT 0)
So, the snow caused my GI doctor that I had seen in the hospital to not be available at my appointment. The doctor that I saw said that he is old fashioned and believes in keeping people on Prednisone at 40mg a day for at least 4 weeks minimum. My regular GI doctor had said to taper each week for 4 weeks (40,30,20,10). I don't want the inflammation to come back, but I don't know if I should disobey my regular doctors orders. Have any of you been on Prednisone for that long before?
Posted 1/21/2012 2:36 PM (GMT 0)
Yes, I've been on 40 for 4 weeks before, but... it ain't pretty. The side effects just get to be too much. I, personally, would do what your original GI said to do. Especially since you are most likely going to keep seeing your GI and not the one you saw that one time only. If you are not sure what to do now, call their office and speak to the nurse. Find out what YOUR doc wants you to do.

Stef
Posted 1/21/2012 2:44 PM (GMT 0)
My original plan was to be on 40 mg for a month with this flare then taper down. But my Crohn's got flared out of control and I got boosted up to 60 mg. This all happened in October and I'm finally down to 15 mg. I'm steroid refractory though so the steroids only work for me on high doses...plus I never really got the Prednisone side affects.

When I was in the hospital once my GI was busy & so the GI doctor on call saw me and he wanted to boost up the steroids despite me telling him I was steroid refractory and already on 60 mg(add to that I was a teenager and my parents were in the cafeteria eating!). I told him no that I was going to follow my own GI's reccomendation & he was rude to try to get me to make medical descisions w/out my parents being there. I don't know how steroids affect you but I would follow your GI's original plan! He/she knows your condition the best! I agree with stef.
Posted 1/21/2012 7:00 PM (GMT 0)
I'd stay on it for the full month and then taper off. From what I've heard this is safer and more effective than yoyoing up and down, which is more likely if you taper too soon. Your GI's taper does seem a little fast. But I'd try to discuss it with your GI first if possible - they may be able to explain why the prescribed it that way?
Posted 1/22/2012 2:31 PM (GMT 0)
I'll second your doc. I had been on pred for one year and a half and after stopping it, I discovered I got hypertension. This was because my doc gave me 40 mg for 3 months and then decided to taper it off and whenever he tapered it afterwards, I flared. I don't want you to get pred's side effects as I did, so taper 10 mg every week.
Hope you feel better soon:)
Posted 1/23/2012 12:45 AM (GMT 0)
If you ask ten different doctors how much and how long to take prednisone, you'll get at least ten different answers, and likely eleven or twelve! smilewinkgrin

I had a situation in 2006 where I had a bad allergic reaction to flagyl - a really bad reaction - and three different docs I saw gave me three different schedules for how much pred to take and for how long. It turned out none of them were right!

The truth is there is no right or wrong answer because nobody knows ahead of time how quickly you'll respond to it, nor do they know how quickly you can taper without causing problems.

So the only advice I can give is that if you're really struggling on 40, drop down some. For you, 30 might be effective without making you totally miserable. Be a little flexible, and listen to your body some.

You don't want the pred to make you miserable, and if you need it at higher than 40 for more than a couple weeks, I'd say it's time to try another Crohn's med. The goal with Crohn's med treatments is to avoid prednisone if at all possible.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply