Splitting Prednisone

I am at that stage in my taper that gets tricky. I am getting ready to drop to 10 mg/day. I am considering splitting my dose in order to help my adrenals kick in. I have always taken my full daily dosage after breakfast.

How is the best way to start splitting my dose? Should I stay at 12.5 and split it for a couple days or just drop and split 10 mg? Is it better to split into two doses or four per day? How crappy will I feel if I only get half(or quarter) dose in the a.m.? Will it effect my sleep if I take in the evening?

So many questions, but I really really want to kick prednisone this time! Also, I am currently on Microdantin due to a bladder infection. Should I hold off tapering til that's gone?

I have been on Imuran since Match so it definitely has had time to kick in. This is my third attempt to get off prednisone so all my doc has said was go slow.

I have just read how several on here have successfully tapered by splitting dosage and wondered if I should give it a shot.

You probably don't have the right pills for it but you can taper by ones from 10 on down. If you are having any symptoms at all though tapering is not going to be successful. If the Imuran is doing what it is supposed to be doing you should be symptom free now and you should be able to just taper off the pred as quickly as possible. If that's not the case then either the Imuran hasn't fully kicked in yet or it isn't going to work. I personally don't think splitting the daily dosage of pred has any effect at all. Some people alternate doses like 10 one day and 12.5 the next and so on. Then you could taper down to 10 every day and then taper alternately again taking 10 one day and 7.5 the next. If you are really interested in a slow taper though I would have your doctor call in a prescription for 1mg pills and stay on one dose for a week or two and then taper down another one for a week or two and continue in that fashion. Good luck.

I am at zero prednisone since my last dose yesterday mid-day. Zero trips to bathroom all day at office which is the goal.

Added in mebeverine and cortisonenema thingy today but it did not last even an hour this morning before it had to be expelled.

Things to remember emphasis on are :

- keep taking suflasalazine 3-4 times per day
- keep taking librax
- take ALA 4 time per day

I did that just days ago and went over 24 hours no bm.

I feel pretty good considering this is normally hell for me. Splitting 20mg and below into 4 daily doses was a good idea. Either with razor blade or smaller dose pills it allowed my adrenals to begin waking up weeks ago. I had some withdrawal symptoms when I dropped to 5mg of course because the body makes 8 so it was being asked to contribute 3 to the 5.

I never had to stop at 7.5 and so far I do not need to stop at 2.5 ( fingers crossed ).

20 mg - 4 divided doses daily
15 mg - 4 divided doses daily
10 mg - 4 divided doses daily
7.5 mg - not needed dropped straight to 5 mg
5 mg - 4 divided doses daily
2.5 mg - not needed dropped straight to zero
0 mg - beginning day 2 of zero pred

I have blades, 2.5 pills, 5.0 pills and 10 mg pills.