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Some more prednisone questions

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 6/27/2014 9:10 PM (GMT 0)
So after two weeks of 40-50mg prednisone had done absolutely nothing for me. My uc was very mild to begin with so I'm finally convinced I'm one of the rare people who just can't metabolize the stuff for some reason. Lucky me lol.

Anyway, my questions are:

1. How quickly can I safely taper off this stuff? I talk to my doctor Monday but would like to start the taper this weekend and get off of this stuff ASAP (it still makes me retain water and my hair is falling out, get me off!). I don't want to go into adrenal shock and die though so.... Anyone been on a similar amount and length of time and manage to get off quickly? I'm not worried about symptoms flaring by not going slow enough since it didn't do anything to help my symptoms anyway..

2. I read a little about people who are prednisone refractory and read one study of people who were steroid refractory like me but had luck with entocort/budesonide. I also read it release higher up in the colon, whereas I have proctitis. Anyone have luck using entocort for proctitis?
Posted 6/27/2014 10:28 PM (GMT 0)
What exact dosage are you on? In any event I would taper down to 20 right away for a week and then decrease to 10 for a week, then 5 for a week and then 5 every other day for a week or two.
Posted 6/27/2014 11:11 PM (GMT 0)

garylouisville said...
What exact dosage are you on? In any event I would taper down to 20 right away for a week and then decrease to 10 for a week, then 5 for a week and then 5 every other day for a week or two.

Do you really think a 20 mg drop after 2 weeks is safe though? Based on my understanding, once youve been on pred for more than about 7 days, you need to taper much more slowly than that. I would imagine dropping to 30 mg would be the largest drop Id want to do first.
Posted 6/28/2014 1:05 AM (GMT 0)
It's not really the milligrams of the taper that is important, it is the percentage. Going from 40 down to 20 is a 50% taper, no different than going from 20 down to 10 or 10 down to 5. It's when you get to the lower doses that you have to be more careful, particularly around 10 and under, but, since laughingduck has only been on pred for two weeks it is possible to taper much faster than if it had been two months or longer.
Posted 6/28/2014 5:01 AM (GMT 0)
Ya you can taper down quickly if you have only been on it for 2 weeks.

I take short prednisone courses sometimes for asthma, poison ivy, allergic stuff, ect . Depending on the severity, 3-8 days, 25-50mg,
Worst was last summer, tripped into a poison ivy bush nearly naked, given 50mg for 8days, no taper. No problem. No effect on my remitted UC.
Never yet had to take pred for UC, thankfully.

Actually my drug info sheet that came with my pred says it takes 10 days for adrenal suppression to occur, so your only 4 days over.
Posted 6/28/2014 6:24 AM (GMT 0)
I know it's pretty standard to taper at 10mg a week. It wasn't successful for me but it seems to be the taper that is suggested. I bet you could go quicker but I would ask my doctor before doing anything too abrupt.
Posted 6/28/2014 3:57 PM (GMT 0)
I would do 10mg until 40, then 5mg every 5-7 days. Once you hit 10mg, I would be more delicate.
Posted 7/1/2014 1:48 AM (GMT 0)
Well my doctor said the quickest for me would be 5mg every 3 days (until I get down to 10mg, then slow it down a bit). It will be interesting if I start to get better as I taper, like last year. I'm currently on day 2 of the taper at 35mg. On the bright side I don't have any major side effects from the steroids, it's like I'm on nothing. My body is weird...
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