Prednisone withdrawal concerns

[jadedreams]

Hey everyone, had some questions about prednisone withdrawal. I had been taking steroids for 2-3 months for a bad round of bronchitis. My doctor had me start a taper 2 weeks ago. Dropped from 20mg to 10mg and did that for a week, then last Wednesday dropped to 5mg and that's when problems started.

Started to get nausea, diarrhea, muscle aches and fatigue. If that wasn't bad enough my anxiety went way up and also got a lot depression. I was doing really well with both of these issues and the night I dropped my dosage they both started going up again. I have a message in to my doctor and will see my therapist on Monday, but was wondering if anyone had any tips for me? Or if anyone had gone through something similar ? Thanks.

[Shazamataz]

Hi there,

I've had a bit of experience with this, having been on two long courses for Chrohn's disease.

Dropping by half is too much for your body to handle. I'd suggest tapering off slower. They come in tablets of tiny doses so you should be able to do 1 or 2 mg a week or so.

The reduced doseage is often nasty for a few days. I found I became very deepressed.

[jadedreams]

Thanks Shaz I appreciate it, yes from what I read it was too quick of a taper. Got a message into my doctor and am waiting to hear back, hope it's soon!

I'm sorry that you went through a rough time with them too.

[countrygirl]

My friend had to come down from 75mg dose that she had been wrongly given when misdiagnosed that she had taken for nearly a year and it took her almost 7 months to get off them.
So as has been said its slowly slowly. Cutting it in half was way to big a jump, she came down by 2mg a week at first, then it was 5mg a wekk and she never went more than 5mg every 7 days.
You really need to discuss with Dr about what to do but def don't cut down anymore until you have talked about it.

[jadedreams]

Thanks Countrygirl, I did end up talking to my doctor about it yesterday and she didn't realize I was on it for 3 months total. I had went to an urgent care center twice for my bronchitis before seeing her for it in March. We are going to do a slower taper of 2.5 a week, I'm supposed to check in with her weekly to see how I'm feeling.

Currently today I'm getting a lot of nausea which is discouraging me, but I haven't picked up the new prescription yet to increase my dose back up. I won't be able to until I get out of work today. I'm hoping after a few days of an increased dose I will start to feel better.

Feeling bad both physically and emotionally really gets to me.

---------- Post added at 14:02 ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 ----------

Ok, really feeling it today - will be glad when I get to pick up the new script and I really hope it helps. I'm feeling both anxious (agitated) and very depressed at the same time. Part of me wants to get up and pace, the other part wants to crawl in bed and cry. I''ve had several intrusive thoughts that really bugged me and I think just depressed type thoughts like I'll never get better, so why bother trying. I think the depressed part bugs me a lot more. I don't like the anxiety, but I guess I'm more used to that.

Any tips for me please...