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Tapering off Prednisone

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 5/16/2014 9:31 PM (GMT 0)
In keeping with the prednisone themed threads, I was wondering what the shortest possible taper was. Ive always done the typical 5mg decrease every 7 days, but Ive heard of people doing shorter timespans than that. Does anyone have any insight into this?
Posted 5/16/2014 9:42 PM (GMT 0)
10 different doctors will prescribe prednisone 10 different ways. There are two completely different reasons to taper pred. One is in relation to healing your UC, the second one is due only to prednisone withdrawyl symptoms. If prednisone is going to work you want to take prednisone at a high enough dose for a long enough time to make sure it gives your colon time to heal. You don't want to get off of it too soon before your colon is actually healed. If you do then you have just wasted your time. The higher dose you have and the longer you are on it, you need to taper it down more slowly. As I said before, 10 different doctors will taper it ten different ways. If prednisone has not worked on you then you want to taper off of it as fast as possible without having prednisone withdrawl. The dose you started at and then length of time you have been on it would play a huge roll in how fast or how slow you taper.
Posted 5/17/2014 1:48 AM (GMT 0)
If one has been on pred for less than three weeks you can taper real fast, like 10 mg drops at-a-time every 4 days or so. On the other end of the spectrum was me who'd been on it for nearly a year, like I was early this year, then I had 2.5 mg drops every two weeks which were still were very rough to take. Enough that I had to resort to 1mg drops at the end to finally shake it.
Posted 5/17/2014 3:03 PM (GMT 0)
I took 40 mg pred for 2 weeks then 30 for 1 week then 20 for 1 week. Now I'm going to take 10 for one week and stop
Posted 5/18/2014 12:15 AM (GMT 0)

garylouisville said...
10 different doctors will prescribe prednisone 10 different ways.

and my needs are different for every flare. More than one cycle of pred per year and it is less effective.

I signed 'Directing my own care' with GP and prescribed 4 months of it to smash the flare that started in August.

Tapering is when your healed and only as fast as your body is ready to respond like it no longer needs it.

Longer ON pred the slower the taper as the adrenals are in deeper hibernation and need to start making it themselves again.

YOU DECIDE
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