Posted 9/8/2009 4:27 PM (GMT 0)
So the GI prescribed me 40mg of prednisone for my mildish colitis which has been flaring since January, I was supposed to taper after one week. At first there was a noticeable improvement (little to no blood, still some mucus), so I went down to 30 for two days after a week but the symptoms started getting worse again, so I went back to 40, assuming I had started tapering too early. Now after another week at 40mg, I'm still getting a good bit of mucus and blood, though I only have around 2-3 trips to the bathroom a day, with varying degrees of "normalness". It seems the prednisone is working less and less with each day.
Now I'm worried that I will have to move up to a higher dose of the pred, I'm still waiting to hear back from my doctor's office. Do you think they will bump me up in dose, is this normal if the first dose becomes uneffective after two weeks? I just don't want to be stuck on the pred longer than I have to, though I have hardly noticed any major side effects.
Also, I am taking 3 Lialda tabs, fish oil caps, vitamin E and B supplements and I've tried different probiotics. Would it be better to just go with the pred+lialda and avoid the other supplements until after I've made progress towards remission? I also used to take Canasa, which was effective early on but pretty much stopped working after a few months. This has been my first time on prednisone so I was hoping it would be very effective.