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Toe cramps when tapering from predisone??

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 1/10/2008 12:37 AM (GMT 0)
Just curious... has anyone experienced this side effect when tapering from predisone? I am not currently on pred, but when I was, and I was tapering, I had such a strange side effect. At night I would wake up with terrible twisted, painful, toe cramps! It would wake me up at night, and scare me half to death it hurt so bad. I ended up having to taper 1/4 of a pill every few days to lessen the cramping. I had never before experienced this in my 15 years of off and on predisone. And it only happened at night.. never during the day. Just curious if anyone else has experienced this.
Posted 1/10/2008 12:42 AM (GMT 0)
I had calf cramps when I was on pred! Awful. And only in the middle of the night too!
Posted 1/10/2008 1:02 AM (GMT 0)
I have toe cramps on it also - I have them every once in a while anyway but I have had them alot since I have been on the predisone. I read something about it being important to eat alot of potassuim and decrease sodium while on the predisone and I have heard that potassuim can keep you from having muscle cramps(like eating bannanes) I suspect this might be why...
Posted 1/10/2008 3:30 AM (GMT 0)
not experiencing the cramping this time but the hair on my legs has stopped growing, shaving once a week as opposed to every day....not complaining about that just mentioning it is odd since I used to get crazy hair growth when on pred...must be the post 40 hormones interacting with the drug in a different way

Posted 1/10/2008 3:38 AM (GMT 0)
I had horrible foot and calf cramps when I was on Pred. I used to have to get up and walk around to keep my toes from curling under and my feet from pointing painfully down. It's part of the package with Pred, I think. Sometimes getting some extra potassium in my diet seemed to help, other times no.
Posted 1/10/2008 7:18 AM (GMT 0)
I had the horrible calf cramps while on pred and also got it worse, but more in the feet when I was tapering from 40mg down to 30.

I found that drinking a gatorade/powerade sports drink before bed seemed to help. My theory was that my sodium and potassium levels were out of wack.
Posted 1/10/2008 9:29 AM (GMT 0)
The potassium theories sounds exactly right on the money to me.

Also, quinine helps eliminate night time cramps. I used to drink tonic water, but you can also get quinine pills.
Posted 1/10/2008 11:45 AM (GMT 0)
I wasn't on pred but steroid enemas for a long time and I would have to say YES YES YES about the toe cramps! Oh my did they hurt! One time I was roller skating with my daughter and my toes decided to do their little wacky split curl thingy and I about feel on my face! I couldn't get those skates off fast enough.
Posted 1/10/2008 2:40 PM (GMT 0)
Now that you mention it, yes. A few days ago, one toe on my foot was cramping up. It didn't last long so I didn't give it a second thought but yeah at the same time I was tapering the Prednisone, weird.
Posted 1/10/2008 3:31 PM (GMT 0)
I'm with Judilyn on this one...I had horrible calf and foot cramps...Not only would they wake me up in the middle of the night once, but sometimes three times...It drove me crazy!!! I noticed every once in a while, if I stretched the wrong way, I would get them in my foot in the daytime, but that wasn't very often...Mostly at night!!!
Posted 1/10/2008 4:09 PM (GMT 0)
One word: Bananas.

If you don't like them, get yourself some potassium (and magnesium) supplements.

When I am low on potassium, I can, for example, extend my toe or stand on my tip toes for something and my calf muscle will just go into a knot and not release. I've had the arch of the foot cramps, too. Usually a banana eases that really rapidly.

Good luck!

Mitz
Posted 1/10/2008 4:45 PM (GMT 0)
i've always had toe cramps now and then, my middle toe always get's stuck.........I do wonder why

while on the pred, in addition to more frequent toe cramps, I get arch cramps, calf cramps, shin cramps, and cramps inside my thighs. I think my potassium was low anyway.

I am tired of banana's so I drink Langer's cran/rasp juice it has 480mg of potassium per serving (more than a banana) and also take potassium suppliments. It definitely helps!
Posted 1/10/2008 6:55 PM (GMT 0)
I get alwful big toe cramps so much so I can't walk at times. Hurts like hell. I am not taking any prednisone. I was told part of the joint pain with ulcerative colitis.

Stacy
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