Decreasing dosage brings on depressed mood....typical ?
Posted , 11 users are following.
Each time I try to reduce my prednisone dosage ( even with small 1/2 mg decreases) I feel my mood become depressed. Is this a typical side effect of the weaning process ?
0 likes, 18 replies
karenjaninaz rocketman42
Posted
diana21296 karenjaninaz
Posted
karenjaninaz diana21296
Posted
I break the 1mgm pill in half at that line in the middle then use a pill cutter to make quarters. They don't come out perfectly but it basically evens out.
diana21296 karenjaninaz
Posted
Guess it's a bit hit and miss but there is no other way for a quarter. Thanks.
linda17563 diana21296
Posted
EileenH rocketman42
Posted
It could be - do you reduce from every day one dose to every day the new dose overnight so to speak?
Have you seen this?
https://patient.info/forums/discuss/reducing-pred-dead-slow-and-nearly-stop-method-531439
Some people are very sensitive to changes in dose - this has helped a lot of patients.
erika59785 EileenH
Posted
Just recently, I thought I could reduce 6 mg to 5 1/2 alternating each day. Oh, no it did not work. I felt the change in my body right away. Increased back and shoulder pain.
Now, I am a "good girl" and use your method ..... dead slow and nearly stop. The only way to go.
Thank you again for the reminder!
danielle62164 erika59785
Posted
I add reduced to 0 ml for 1 month and i have to start again
I when up to 4ml but I think I'll have to try 5 because shoulders arms legs hips every things is sore 😰
diana21296 rocketman42
Posted
I am reducing half mg every 4weeks and am on 13.5mg down from 30mg. For the first 4 days I feel achy in shoulder muscles and feely very short tempered at home! The body then adjusts and I am then ok. Try not to arrange anything that week. Saw rheumy recently and instead of half mg he suggested 1mg using DSNS method o achieve the same result. I was impressed he knew all about it! But couldn't possibly imagine dropping by a mg even though it would be on only one day the first week so think I will stick with my current plan. He said I can do it whichever way suits me best.
EileenH diana21296
Posted
tpaggs diana21296
Posted
When I got down to 2 mg, I started decreasing bt 1/4 mg every 4 weeks. Currently, at 1 1/2 mg. Because I 've been having some episodes of pain in my back I've decided to stay on this dose for 5 weeks. Also dealing with an unexplained rash. I want to see if blood work next week reveals anything. If all goes well, I'll then reduce to 1 1/4 mg. Believe me it's a real challenge cutting my pills as Medrol only comes in 2 mg doses.
Anhaga diana21296
Posted
I've been using .5 mg drop with dead slow for a long time. I'm now at a very low dose so I'm using the .5 for the whole taper, but earlier when I was at a higher dose I would drop by a further .5 mg halfway through the taper, so my new dose became my new old dose, and I had a new new dose. If that makes sense. I used to do this at the point where you have two sessions of two days old dose, and would slide down the next .5 mg the second time. So I never had a day where I dropped by more than .5 mg from the day before, but was able to achieve a full 1 mg drop in a month, recently I started taking six weeks slowing down the taper even more, and now no longer attempting the second .5 halfway through. But I'm at 3 mg for sure, and attempting to get to 2.5 so it's getting harder.
diana21296 EileenH
Posted
EileenH diana21296
Posted
You don't have to start at 1 day new, 6 days old - it says that in the text. I did that because I was very sensitive to changes, lots of people start at 1 day new, 4 days old. And with DSNS you might be able to manage 1mg at a time over the 7 weeks - I have to, I can't cut the tablets and that was the idea originally, to smooth a 1mg drop.
Anhaga diana21296
Posted
I used the four day start stop cycle for most of my early tapers. I'm lengthening the time now to the six day one as I'm at a very low dose and probably near my lowest possible dose. I didn't need to start DSNS until I was reducing from 9 to 8, however. I think if you are feeling well at your somewhat higher dose you could do well with the four day cycle. And that takes one month. Also see my other post somewhere in this thread where I described how I could go from .5 to 1 mg drop within same taper period. The current taper I'm on is the first time I've not done this. Hence my struggles with splitting a 5 mg tablet to achieve a 2.5 dose for the taper, and my annoyance that I might end up on 2.5, not a handy 2, for months.