Prednisolone Steroids withdrawal

There's only a few certainties within life: death, paying taxes, and prednisone side effects! There's no avoiding them. Withdrawal isn't bad, just follow a slow taper process. You might feel a little off for a day or two after each drop and then bounce back to your normal. It doesn't really get tough until you get below 10mgs, which is when you want to do smaller drops and slower drops. Often half pills, or smaller pills can be used as you approach zero. Why? As you get below 12 mgs, your adrenals should begin awaking and resuming production of cortisol (pred is synthetic cortisol). Withdrawal is when you don't have enough Pred and Cortisol within your system to meet what your body needs, and it might result in body aches, fatigue, and such. Cortisol is highest in the early AM and helps us awaken, and cortisol is lowest before bed and while we sleep (it's like an alarm clock). Cortisol also is a mild pain reliever taking care of minor aches and pains within our bodies. You've been on pred 3 months so there's no race to be off it fast! You're best to go slow for an uneventful taper. We all want to be off of pred as of yesterday, but patience is key!

And most important of all, listen to your body and watch your UC symptoms as you taper. If your UC gets and stays worse as you taper then that's a huge red waving flag of danger ahead. In that situation, return to your last safe dose and call your gasteroenterologist asap. As you must be able to successfully taper off of pred without re-entering your flare. When symptoms start reappearing as you taper then you need to adjust your maintenance medications before continuing the taper to zero.

Puffy face and weight gain are both pred side effects.

Everyone that takes Prednisone has some side effects, we are all different though. I am now tapering down from 60g to 2.5g and it has been really hard.

The side effects for me have been..

Voracious appetite
Face like a Water Melon
Looking pregnant
Unpredictable and moody
Dark rings under the eyes
Broken red veins in my face
Lots of weight gain.

Those are my symptoms, yours will be different. Try to exercise and not overeat which I have done as I have felt hungry all the time.

I am told that once you come off the Pred the weight will come off.

Best of luck.

I have had different side effects each time ive been on Prednisolone. I had insomnia, hunger, sweats, aches and one time my GI sent me to Cardiology as he thought I was having an episode!

They usually go quite quickly though after stopping.

IPoop, my GI once told me that they like patients with extra padding as it gives them more time to resolve a flare without worrying about weight etc.

I agree that the weight gain is the worst. I gained about 30,lbs on my small frame. Luckily I'm tapering all the way down to 7.5 mg right now. I have a wedding in 4 weeks so hopefully I'll be a little bit more back to normal by then.

Hang in there!