Going up steps is a big problem
Posted , 16 users are following.
Have been on prednisone for about 3 months, started at 30 now at 20 after a disastrous reduction to 10. Have been on 20 for two weeks now. Still takes time in the morning to get going, afternoon and evening are better as far as mobility/achiness. I have steps in my house and it is Very difficult to go up the steps!!! GOing down is no problem. Am considering getting a stair lift. When I go up the steps, I take one step and have to rest a minute before taking another step. What do you all think?
0 likes, 17 replies
EileenH wilma80366
Posted
I think your doctor has reduced your dose far too fast and in far too big steps since it sounds as if you went 30/20/10 - though I stand to be corrected.
Using pred in PMR is not like the usual way pred is used: hit the inflammation on the head and reduce the pred to zero. You clear out all the existing inflammation with the starting dose and then reduce slowly, in small steps, to find the lowest dose that gives the same result as the starting dose did. As already mentioned, each drop should never be more than 10% of the current dose - so even at 30mg, 3 mg is ore than enough. At 20 you are down to 2mg, 1.5mg at 15 - so 1mg drops from there make perfect sense.
Try taking your pred as early in the orning as possible - many take it about 5 or 6am and then settle down for another couple of hours - by then the pred is absorbed and starting to work. That is if you are on ordinary white prednisolone tablets. Prednisone may take a bit longer. Enteric coated prednisolone will take 5 or 6 hours to reach its peak level in the blood and it will be much lower than for the white tablets.
You don't say how long you had had PMR pre-pred - it may be that your thigh muscles have lost strength over that time because as soon as I started pred I could walk up (and down) stairs normally - I'd been dragging myself up with the handrail or crawling on hands and knees until then. I had had PMR for 5 years though - no diagnosis!
Maybe a physio could help to get your thigh muscles back to beng some use? I do see the attraction of a stairlift (I live on the second floor and we have a lift to fall back on but I only use it with shopping) but there is a lot to be said for trying to get your legs going again. The exercise is the only way to get the muscles back to normal. You haven't really been on pred long enough for it to very much affect your muscles - muscle wasting can be a problem for some people with some steroids: I had it with Medrol for example but not with prednisolone or prednisone - as soon as I switched to prednisone the muscles started to build again.
Are you also on statins by any chance? They absolutely floored me within a few days - I was already on Medrol so it could have been the combination but they are notorious for that. .
Loulie wilma80366
Posted
I hadn't thought about Pred bieng responsible for this, but perhaps I should. I have spinal stenosis and I also have narrow and steep steps where I live. I simply go up on all fours which is easy. However one cannot do that when out :-) so take it slowly and step up one step and bring the other foot onto that step before repeating the process (sorry not easy to explain). I assumed spinal stenosis was to blame.