Advised to quit prednisone immediately

Posted , 7 users are following.

I am in my 12 th year of prednisone use. Many years between 10 and 5 on internest instructions. Never knowing about this site I decided to quit while on 5 mg. good for awhile then big flair. Sent to rheumy for the first time with pretty good results with reducing. You can imagine tho how thin and always bruised my skin is. I have had many trips to ER for terrible cuts and skin tears.  But two months ago I had a bad fall while carrying a furnace humidifier and cut my leg deeply by the tin. I was diagnosed with compartment syndrome and had two surgeries to drain leg. I have been going to home care for dressing changes for two months but leg got infected the infection is a bad one and yesterday more surgery for debridement.  Today surgeon told me I had to completely go off pred or it will never heal and I could lose my leg.  Also will need skin graft which wouldn't take if skin doesn't improve by going off pred.  Of course I have no option but to listen to him. He said I can live with the PMR pain for that long which of course is true as I had it for 2 o3 months before diagnosis     My plan is to quit of course and phone rheumy when I'm released from hospital...possibly a week as he wants to check to make sure no more infection before I go home. 

My question for you knowledgable people is this. Do you think methotrexate would help. I've read on here it takes a long time to be effective.  

Feeling down. Need some good advice. 

 

0 likes, 10 replies

10 Replies

  • Posted

    I put a long reply to the second half of your post - and when I clicked reply it had been deleted and it disappeared irretrievably.

    What I said was I wasn't sure mtx will help here although I may be wrong and only your surgeon can tell you what he thinks. It is also an immunosuppressant so I think might still interfere with the immune system fighting off the infection. Some doctors also think that mtx intereferes with healing - and discontinue it for surgery and for a few weeks afterwards.

    My own personal opinion of the use of some of these other drugs as so-called steroid sparers is that they work most often in cases where maybe the PMR diagnosis was not 100% correct and something else was going on as well. The long time aspect is that it is said to take a year to show a significant reduction in pred dose - and in those cases I would say maybe if the patient had gone about reduction slowly enough they would have got the dose down anyway. But that's my opinion.

    It is possible to live with PMR pain - I did it for 5 years because it wasn't diagnosed. There are ways of making it less worse if you see what I mean - not least, gritting your teeth! Warmth helps a lot. My grandfather almost certainly had PMR in the 1950s - he carried on running a smallholding despite it, there was no way of treating it at all then, steroids hadn't been around long. They accepted it was what happened when you got old, you developed "rheumatics", and you got on with it.

    But the ouch of PMR versus the possibility of losing your leg - no contest is there? Good luck

    • Posted

      Thanks Eileen. Don't need another drug fighting my immune system. That leaves me with Tylenol for arthritis. I did get a 5mg tablet this morning so maybe doc decided a little slower but know it will discontinued when I leave. But as you say a no brainer to quit.

  • Posted

    Wish I could be of help....you are in quite a pickle....must be quite frustrating. Eileen is brilliant and I can highly recommend following her advice. Wish you the best in finding relief😊

  • Posted

    Sorry to hear about your serious troubles.  I've suffered similarly, not as serious as yours; bruises, infections on my leg being treated w/ antibiotics, zinc wrap, etc., permanent scars and discolored skin.  I live in Florida and still wear miy capris.  I'm down to  7mg. tapering v ery slowly, still suffer numerous bruises.  I've gotten uised to it, and I CAN function1  Good luck to you!

  • Posted

    Case history:

    I'm on 8mg (10mg at the initial time of the incident) medrol. Fell and peeled back several sqin of skin in multiple places on leg. Went to local nursing. Nurse used only saline solution to clean all wounds. Then used a Q-tip to push the skin back into place and used tape to hold it there. Those wounds were not treated with any medication whatsoever. Seven days later they have completely healed. Preds didn't seem to harm the healing. One of the wounds did not have skin left on it. Nurse cleaned it with saline, Slathered with neosporin and covered loosely. It is not completely healed yet, but not surprising. When I was not taking preds such a wound took a long time to heal.

    • Posted

      You are one of the lucky ones to heal so fast Most skin tears I can deal with myself having a large supply of steri strips on hand but the ones that a go deeper have required twice weekly visits to our Homecare service. Only once before did one get infected. But this one is not a tear, it is like a crater. Doc talking about needing IV at home for 6 weeks but is going to confer with pharmacy tomorrow. Whatever---it will be dealt with. Do not want to lose my leg!!!!
    • Posted

      I certainly didn't mean to minimize your problems. I realize that craters are quite different from skin being peeled back, no matter how much skin is involved. I sympathize deeply and wish for you eventual total healing and minimum complications.

      The only purpose in my post was to question whether prednisone is highly detrimental to healing.

    • Posted

      Unfortunately I can no longer use any tape on my skin, it peels the skin off and another bleed. M y podiatrist gave me some stocking nets that slip over the arm or leg to hold dressing in place.  Some of you on the forum may already be using these, if not they are great!
    • Posted

      I suspect that eddylynn's problem is less the healing than the presence f the infection. And everyone is different - I have never had any healing or bruising problems while on pred nor have I had more infections - but I know plenty of people who HAVE had such problems.

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