Pred Tapering

So, your doctor is an idiot. Or he has zero experience. Sorry, that was a tad harsh, but true. There are some people in this group who have had to go down .5 mg every few weeks or months even. You can get them in 1 mg dose pills and cut them in half. You've been on it for a VERY long time and are steroid dependent. Tell him to look it up, it's actually fairly common.

I am SO over uninformed doctors.

As scifigal said, do it slowly. I was on pred for a year and 3 months and can relate. The thing is that I replaced pred with entocort and this is how I could get rid of it.

I never follow my GI's recommendations to taper pred or entocort. I even argue w him that I'll do it slowly and after talking about it several times, he leaves me do whatever I want.

You can follow an alternate day plan, where you take the tablet one day and skip it the other that would give you an average of 2.5 mg per day. If this is still hard for you, try to get the 1 mg tablet and you can go down by 1 mg or a 0.5 mg every other week until you can stop it. If this 1 mg tablet is not available, follow the average thing. It worked for me especially with going down from 9 mg of budesonide to 3 mg where i'm still there.

Could you ask him to just let you try the slower taper?

I understand the frustration. Are you in a place that has a lot of different GI practices? Is your GI at least willing to try a slower taper, or is he forcing you to just stop by not letting you refill prescriptions?

I was on Pred for 7 years, 5 of them just on 5mg, as soon as I would try and got even 1g lower I would get really ill. Finally last year I did the 1mg ever six weeks and finally got off of it. I have had to do two short rounds due to bronchitis and a crohns flare. I think you should really try the 1mg taper for a few months, I think you will find it a lot easier on your body, good luck!!

Deb