HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Question about tapering pred

Support Forums
>
Ulcerative Colitis
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 9/1/2012 2:24 AM (GMT 0)
Why do people tend to flare on low doses of their prednisone taper? Can it happen just because?
Posted 9/1/2012 2:29 AM (GMT 0)
prednisone calms the inflammation response because of an unknown "danger" in the colon, therefore the immune system reacts by sending inflammatory cells.

if the prednisone hasn't stopped the inflammation cycle then you will flare as you taper because your immune system wakes up and sees the danger in your colon and says HEY WHAT R U DOING THERE?

I started SCD the same day as prednisone, I tapered fine, no repercussions. According to the SCD science, the prednisone masked symptoms for me to have the energy to do SCD, the SCD calmed down some bad bacteria in the colon, and then when the prednisone was gone the Immune system saw not much "danger" and decided to do better things w/ it's time.
Posted 9/1/2012 2:37 AM (GMT 0)
Most cases of UC are autoimmune (our bodies immune system attacking our intestines/colon) so what prednisone does on higher doses is to greatly slow down our overactive immune system by shutting down the adrenal glands, which are part of our immune system. The adrenal glands naturally produce about 10-12 milligrams of cortisol (a steroid) but when you are on high doses of pred the adrenal glands are basically shut down and do not work, slowing down our immune systems so that they do not attack our intestines/colon. Continuing to take at least 10 mgs of prednisone keeps our adrenal glands shut down. When the prednisone is tapered to lower doses under 10 mgs our adrenal glands start functioning again, causing our immune systems to be stronger and unfortunately resuming the attack. This is why prednisone works so well on most at the higher doses but rarely puts anyone into complete remission if tapered completely off prednisone or even just taking doses lower than 10mgs.
Posted 9/1/2012 2:40 AM (GMT 0)
Aww :( scared :(
Posted 9/1/2012 1:57 PM (GMT 0)
Chrissy, are you taking oral Pred? I was taking it rectally and thanks to SCD I was able to be almost symptom-free for about a month until I foolishly started experimenting which of course was fail. I started bleeding and had mucus right after so now I'm back on cortisone enemas hoping I can taper them off just as fine as I was able to the first time. Then I'm staying on mesalazine enemas and SCD hoping to stay stable. Don't be scared girl. Watch your body closely and react as soon as you can if you see any symptoms coming back. How are you doing right now? Are you having symptoms?
Posted 9/1/2012 2:36 PM (GMT 0)
A little. I go back and forth easily depending what I eat. What did you experiment with that did it?
Posted 9/1/2012 2:46 PM (GMT 0)
Milkshakes was the worst I experimented with lol soo yummy but I really cannot take on it.
Posted 9/1/2012 9:22 PM (GMT 0)
Just wanted to give you some hope. I have tapered pred pretty quickly a number of times with no problems. After those tapers I have maintained remission for various lengths of time from 6 months to a year. Some people can get of pred easily and others cannot.
Posted 9/1/2012 10:07 PM (GMT 0)
I AGREE WITH JOMA
all people are different gettin off pred
Posted 9/1/2012 10:37 PM (GMT 0)
Thank you Joma :)
Posted 9/1/2012 10:50 PM (GMT 0)
I'm in the middle of my first Pred taper as well. It is a little scary. I was at 40 and now am on 35. Monday I go down to 30. So far no problems but like you I worry about the lower doses to come.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply