Droped to 20 on pred and symptoms returing?

So went from 30 to 20 on Pred and after about 5 days had more urgency and loose stools. No blood or mucus though. Only been for a day so maybe it is something else but not sure. Really disappointing. Next Remicade is in August. Wondering if I should go back up to 30 mg on the pred.

Did you start at 40? How long have you been taking pred?

I think you should add mesalamine enemas and see if they'll allow you to taper off pred. I'd FOR SURE add them before trying Remicade.

I would go back to your previous dosage 0f 30mgs of pred if things got worse, and stay worse after dropping your dose.

This means one of two things. First, you could be tapering too fast as others have mentioned. Second, you could be pred-dependent, meaning you need that dosage of pred in order to maintain your current status (as reducing pred makes things worse). Generally, it's pretty bad to be pred dependent as you don't want to be on it long term, so you'd have to add another uc med or stronger dosage of a current uc med before tapering again. In your case, you might want to increase the frequency of your remicade from 8 weeks to 6 weeks?

How long have you been on pred? I ask because the longer you've been on it the slower you need to taper off of it. I've been on it longer than most, and I am going to be tapering at 2.5mg once I get below 20mgs.

Only 6-7 weeks (I'm at 5 months)? Well I'd still go back to 30mgs for a couple weeks and make sure things get back to normal. And then you could taper at 5mgs every 7 days pretty easily. The thing with pred is there is no such thing as tapering too slowly, but too fast oh boy you're in for trouble.

So I know I'm probably being a pest, but since you haven't responded to my suggestion of rectal meds, I'd like to suggest them once again.

They can really make a huge difference and it's likely they'll help you get off of pred.

I had ZERO problems tapering off of pred, but I was using mesalamine enemas every night at the time.

I'm gonna try them again. They really do upset my stomach all the next day though.

fruitgirl said...
So I know I'm probably being a pest, but since you haven't responded to my suggestion of rectal meds, I'd like to suggest them once again.

They can really make a huge difference and it's likely they'll help you get off of pred.

I had ZERO problems tapering off of pred, but I was using mesalamine enemas every night at the time.

I'm going to post something different. I'd suggest tapering the pred as soon as you can regardless if you flare back up. You need to get off that drug asap.

Better to flare than to be on pred. True story. Pred will destroy anything in your body, from eyes, bones, mobility, mental stuff. Find something else to get you in remission.

what do you mean if you have to work.

I work and flare. I time my stuff, run when I need to, wear a diaper going to work, I deal with it.

And better biologic than pred. Pred will rape your body with lightning quickness.

I learned to stop worrying and love the pred (a reference to the Stanley Kubrick movie: dr stangelove the day I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb). Pred has a purpose, and it can help people greatly and I think over the short term, and surely scum1 is very short-term at 6-7 weeks, the good far outweighs the bad with this drug. Yeah, the drug has serious longterm side effects, but we are talking when you've been on it for years (nasty things like glaucoma, osteoporosis and so forth) but none of those happen overnight.

What happens overnight is you might get pimples, have trouble sleeping, get the munchies, and other nuisances like that. I mean I'd much rather be pimple faced then bleeding out my bum, again the good outweighing the bad. Never heard of pred causing halos before, it's not a hallucinogen (sure there were no magic shrooms also involved haha).

I was off of it for severl months. This is only my second time on Pred. First time I had problems at 10 mg and went back up. I was able to taper back down and get off then. . I think I'll ride this out and go with the enemas as see how it goes. Future tapering will be only 5mg at a time though.

fruitgirl said...
scum1, looking back at some old posts, it appears this is not the first time you've had trouble with a pred taper. Have you ever been able to get completely off of it?

"Never heard of pred causing halos before, it's not a hallucinogen (sure there were no magic shrooms also involved haha)."

lol, that was it then. The 'shrooms I was taking. lol joking. I went to an eye specialist. A part in the eye was slightly inflammed which cause small halos. When I stopped the evil pred, the eye recovered. Coincidence. Maybe...........i don't think so.