Adrenal glands

HOw do you know if your adrenal glands are ready to function when you end your pred taper?

What are the symptoms or side effects from the taper that would correlate with poor adrenal function?

I don't think there's any way to know, because the normal adrenal function is suppressed when you're still taking it. You just have to go off and see what happens.

I just read online that you can be tested for levels of the adrenal hormone cortisol.

There is a test for adrenal function. I believe it is a blood test. My doctor is testing me when I get off the prednisone. You cannot be on prednisone and be tested for adrenal function. I am not certain, however, exactly how long you have to be off it. I asked my doctor this same question the last time I saw him. My friend had Crohn's Disease, took herself off prednisone without tapering and developed Addison's Disease which is failure of the adrenal grands.
My concern about my adrenal function is that I seem to flare after only being off the prednisone for a short period of time...say two months at the most. Since May of 08 I have been on and off prednisone for a period of 14 months...FAR TOO LONG. The doctor usually starts me at 40 mgm. He tried me tapering at 10 mgm per week in Jan but that was too fast a taper, I wound up relapsing big time, had to go back to 40 mgm, now tapering 5 mgm per week. I was supposed to be down to 10 mgm starting this past Wednesday but yesterday had a bad day. Someone in the forum suggested I go to 12.5 mgm this week. I did that today. A much better day today, so maybe I have to taper more slowly than the 5 mgm now.

Were it that simple... emphasis on the "should"...

Ellen, are you doing the alternating taper??

Yeah, I'm at 5 and 7.5 now

Gaining about 5 pounds a week, it seems,

This thread makes me laugh. Bermuda Triangle NSSG, I was 103 pounds in my Facebook photo, now I'm 130. My ideal weight is about 123 or 124.

My GI has me on a different taper below 10. It's 7.5 and 5 for two weeks, 7.5 and 2.5 for two weeks and 7.5 and 0 for two weeks. The idea is to wake up the adrenal function on alternate days. He says there is an art to the taper. And he would have used my high point as 10, had I not already been at 5 when we started this. He's a new doctor that I went to see for a consult.

I too failed on Asacol alone after two months off prednisone. Now I have suppositories, and enemas and asacol and am seeing if I can make it.

So far so good. BMS are fine.

Q, did you think there is a better taper I should be following? JB2, I did that 2.5 increment taper after failing a taper twice. That did the trick, but I flared two months after my last pred pill... My bottom half was fine, mentally I was a nutcase after I got off pred for about six weeks. High anxiety, itching, depression. I've fortified myself against any possible negative outcome this time with a good arsenal thanks to advice from this group. If it doesn't work, I'm not meant to be maintaining on 5ASA.

Ellen

I just saw your post and I had tpo reply.

I have been on pred for 7 years straight - I could never get off. Whenever I got to 3mg I would flare. Happened hundreds of times, and I was sick of it.

I read up on the net about adrenal glands, as I suspected they were the reason I kept getting sick. No Doctors would take me seriously. In the end, after a lot of complaining,  I had a cortisol test done - which showed my cortisol level was dangerously low.  But, I had to have another set of tests done to confirm the diagnosis. I had a synacthen test - and that confirmed I had Secondary Addisons Disease (secondary andrenal failure).

If only I had been given this test all those years ago I would not have had to endure all those flare-ups.

SO, long term pred has drastically reduced my adrenal function - and I now take a small dose of Hydrocortisone every day.  Your taper of 7.5 and 0 would never have worked for me. It may work for you.  I have been told it could take YEARS of me taking a tiny dose of steroid for my adrenals to start working again.

I have also been given an emergency steroid injection to keep at home.

Being on pred can affect the outcome of a cortisol test but there are ways around it.  Your endocinologist can advise you.

I hope this helps.

Best of luck to you.