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Going below 20mg/pred, any luck out there?

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 2/9/2009 4:31 PM (GMT 0)
Anyone have any tips? I went to 17.5mg last week, and did well until day #5 and then it started to look like a flare. Urgency came back. I have done 20mg this morning and everything is A-okay.
Posted 2/9/2009 5:11 PM (GMT 0)
I can't go under 20mg either. Even at 20mg I am a mess, but at 15mg I cannot function at all. So for now, it's PRED for me

Posted 2/9/2009 5:51 PM (GMT 0)
How do you take the pred (1x a day, 2x a day)? The reason I ask is because when I was on it, I found that if I split my dose into 3 or 4 times a day, I did much better. It just seemed like it stayed consistent in my body and I was able to wean and do well on it.
Posted 2/9/2009 6:56 PM (GMT 0)
Talk to your doctor about Imuran (or something else) if you haven't already. I also took an Adrenal Support supplement as I was coming off pred.
Posted 2/9/2009 8:09 PM (GMT 0)
i take the pred throughout the day, can you take a lot at once? i just lowered to 30mg a day this week but overall it's not working at all, I was on 40mg for the first 10 days and noticed very little change.
Posted 2/9/2009 8:27 PM (GMT 0)
I have been tapering also... from 40 ( for months ) then we started to taper. I'm down to 15 mg. Everytime I drop a dose ( 2.5 gm at atime ) I get about 3 to 4 bad days... normally around day 4 to day 8 or 9 of the new dose. After that is gets back to normal. MY GI would like to taper me every ten days, but has found that it has to be every twenty. When he asks me at 10 days, I have to tell him things have been bad. Then after 10 more days I report things have been good and he drops it another 2.5 mg. He and I talked about this last time. Seems my body reacts badly to the drop, but levels out around day 10. He said it was not common, but not unheard of for this to happen. we just had to adjust my taper schedule to give my body time to adjust....
Posted 2/9/2009 9:45 PM (GMT 0)
The bleeding would come back every time I went under 25 mgs. It's natural for the bleeding to come back when tapering off the medicine, because Prednisone stops the body's normal production of Cortisol. It takes awhile for the body to adjust and increase its production of Cortisol back to normal levels.

I'm not sure whether or not being on Prednisone after going down to the 25mg level really helps. In other words, will the flareup go away on its own whether or not we are on Prednisone? I think all the Prednisone does is reduce the bleeding until the inflammation goes away on its own.

I've had three flareups. All of them went away, not from Prednisone though. The first one went away by itself. The second one from fecal transplantation, and the third one from Probiotics and diet.
Posted 2/10/2009 1:52 AM (GMT 0)
Stay on 20 for another week and try to go down again. That's what I do, it's trial and error sometimes. I eventually can get down and off and out of a flare.

If you spread your dose out instead of taking it all at once in the morning, your side effects will be worse. But sometimes it's worth it if you feel real bad by the end of the day.
Posted 2/10/2009 2:05 AM (GMT 0)
Any long term pred users here WITHOUT side effects...details please : )
Posted 2/10/2009 3:55 AM (GMT 0)
I'm down to 7.5mg and will be going down to 5 mg tomorrow ^_^ SO far so good. I am also on Imuran.
Posted 2/13/2009 4:59 AM (GMT 0)
Sometimes on a prednisone wean you have to deal with increased symptoms, I would even have severe flare issues even while on higher doses, and that is without any dietary changes.  I am a big believer in stress causing many of my problems.  But after years of prednisone it caught up with me, and I know others that had severe side effects much earlier.  Keep trying and hopefully you can find that right level for your body, good luck

-------------------------------------------------------

yuckygut

diagnosed 1998

now off prednisone and colazal

drink 1 Haldi daily to maintain remission 

Posted 2/13/2009 5:36 AM (GMT 0)
well I'm down to 5 mg and no problems so far ^_^
Posted 2/13/2009 11:50 AM (GMT 0)
I could not get below 20mg for years. I tried just about everything. On Jan 1 2008 I started Humira. Took a long time for it to really start helping. I was able to get down to 10mg of Pred but couldn't get any lower, even with the Humira.

about two months ago I decided to cut gluten out of my diet and am now down to 5mg without any problems. Cutting out gluten is having dramatic positive effects for me. I am still weaning of the pred but I am weaning very slowly. This it the first time in five years that I have been on this low of a dose of Pred and I'm doing the best I've ever done.

I am able to go on long drives again. I live in a small county town and one of my favorite things to do is to drive to Madison WI do things around town. It's about an hour drive and I can finally start doing that again.
Posted 2/13/2009 2:30 PM (GMT 0)
     Has your GI doctor suggested 6MP or Imuran?  Uncle Bubba...how long have you been on the prednisone?
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