Posted , 14 users are following.
Has anyone ever cut their Pred in half? I take 10mg in the morning and 10 mg at night, I would like to try 5 mg at night and see if I notice any difference. I have been getting some light stomach pains occaisionally.
1 like, 22 replies
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Daniel1143 mike42494
Posted
Anhaga Daniel1143
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Anhaga
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Judygirl mike42494
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of prednisone to 4 where I am holding steady. There
is absolutely no point in reducing quickly - it just does
not work and in the long run does more harm than good.
When I have been on 4mgs for a couple more months
(4 in all) I shall go down to three for another few months.
EileenH mike42494
Posted
There is no reason at all not to taper in 5mg steps for most uses of pred - which are short term usually. For example, I had 2 weeks each of 15mg, 10mg, 5mg and stop. That is perfectly OK.
Above about 10mg large drops of 5mg in dose are fine IF YOU CAN TOLERATE THEM - some people can. It is also OK if you went up to a higher dose for a short time to knock a flare that you caused by reducing too far on the head and the intention is to get back to the last dose where you had been fine. From what he says I understand that to apply in Mike's case - he hasn't been on pred for long.
Once you get below 10mg you need to reduce slowly as your body is approaching the point where it has to make cortisol again - the slower you drop your dose the more likely it is that that will succeed.
Above and below 10mg the slow reduction achieves two things in PMR:
One is it is less of a shock to the system changing the dose in small steps after you have been on a dose for more than a month or so, you are less likely to suffer from steroid withdrawal symptoms, which can be very similar to the PMR symptoms, and it helps to differentiate between it and a real flare
The second is that you want to identify the right dose accurately - if you drop in big steps you can't tell as well. You were fine at 10mg, you weren't at 5mg - but would 9mg or 6mg be right? Either, or anywhere in between, is possible.
There is no reason NOT to cut 10mg white uncoated tablets if you can manage it - in some countries there isn't a choice, not all doses are available and they save money by prescribing a bigger tablet and telling patients to cut them. When it comes to reducing though it is far easier to do so with smaller denominations of tablet - particularly 1mg ones.
Like everything else here - horses for courses. And taking your tablets along with a decent sized snack/with yogurt or glass of milk/in the middle of a meal always reduces the likelihood of what feels like a a mouse nibbling at your innards.
Lee-Colorado mike42494
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