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Tapering Pred

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 3/6/2008 7:23 PM (GMT 0)
I've read tons of horrible things about predisone, but luckily for me it's brought me out of my flare with no side effects (I'm wondering if this is because it's my first experience w/ pred and I haven't been on it for too long?)

Anyways, my doctor has me tapering down from 40 mg (week 1), 20 mg (week 2-3), 15 mg (week 4) 10 mg (week 5) and 5 mg (week 6). I'm now on 10 mg in week 5. From what I've read, this seems like a rather quick taper. I feel great- have fully formed, normal (1 a day) bms since week 3, but am 30 weeks pregnant. I sure don't want to chance another flare up at this point in my pregnancy. I don't have an appointment with my doc until after I'll be completely off of predisone, so here's my question:

Do you think I should stay on 5 mg until my doc appointment? I'm also on asacol and nightly pentasa enemas.

I sure don't want to mess up the good thing I have going!

Thanks in advance for your help :)
Posted 3/6/2008 7:35 PM (GMT 0)

Hi there...

If the current taper schedule is working well for you - especially as you're already at 10mg and things seem to be looking good, I wouldn't be too concerned.  If all's going well, then you'd rather get off steroids sooner than later. 

However, if you feel like you might be close to flaring up then you could speak to your GI specialist about tapering at a slower rate below 10mg i.e. tapering by 2.5mg per week instead - that only extends the taper by another 2 weeks or so.

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