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Purple spots

Posted , 10 users are following.

carlene22578
carlene22578

Been on pred since mid Nov 2017 started on 30 mg. Now on 15.... seems like every day I find a new reddish,purple spot on my arms. Any idea what might be going on? Are not sore at all.

0 likes, 13 replies

13 Replies

  • celia14153
    celia14153 carlene22578

    Posted

    I know. Complete pain! Steroids thin the skin and you get these spots and bruises very easily. No harm done but unsightly. I use a make up cover stick for important occasions...😀

  • Anhaga
    Anhaga carlene22578

    Posted

    Some people find their skin gets very thin and easily injured.  I haven't found that but I still occasionally get tiny red spots, they used to be bigger at higher dosage.  Yes, a strange pred side effect.

  • margot34956
    margot34956 carlene22578

    Posted

    Hi, I also have been on pred since mid Nov 2017, and yes also have those purple spots on the hands and arms.

    Any injury no matter how small does create them. Also they appear on the face from just scratching. Interesting though not on the legs, I pinched myself to see and nothing appeared.

    hope you are doing O.K

     

    • carlene22578
      carlene22578 margot34956

      Posted

      Glad to know it's not just me. Doing fairly well....currently at 15 mg pred. Just tried to lower to 13.5 and had a major flare so back to 15 for a couple weeks. Guess it just takes patience!

    • margot34956
      margot34956 carlene22578

      Posted

      Yes indeed patience. I am not so good at that, but so very helpful, people on this forum sharing, from them I have not reduced too quickly. All the best with getting down to 13.5 again.
    • diana21296
      diana21296 carlene22578

      Posted

      I you are sensitive it is best to only drop 1mg every 4 weeks.  Drop slowly and you will be successful. You do not want to have to keep going up because of a flare.    Under 10mg stick to half mg every 4 weeks.  It is not worth trying to hurry and making yourself ill. 
    • EileenH
      EileenH carlene22578

      Posted

      That usually suggests the dose is slightly too low and the inflammation is mounting up again rather than steroid withdrawal. But you would be better at this stage to reduce 1/2mg at a time - you may find 14 is enough, 13.5 isn't. Half a mg used to make a big difference to me.

      It doesn't mean you won't get lower, just not yet. You've only had PMR for just over 6 months so it is early days and often it is much more active at the start than it will be later.

  • diana21296
    diana21296 carlene22578

    Posted

    I am on 7.5mg and get them on my hands and wrists. They usually come in threes and fade within 5-7 days.  I didn't get them at higher doses of pred.  I don't bother about them as nothing to worry about.

  • EileenH
    EileenH carlene22578

    Posted

    Pred tends to make the tiny capillaries (the smallest blood vessels) in the skin more fragile and they can be damaged by even a slight knock, even carrying a bag over my arm or scratching the wrong place will do it for me, and then they bleed a bit and leak into the surrounding area. If they are bigger than 3mm they are called purpura and smaller ones are called petechiae.

    Funnily, the spots I get are always on my arms, nowhere else! And once one has formed, it is more likely there will be more in the same place even months later. They sometimes heal to leave a brown patch like a freckle. 

  • BettyE
    BettyE carlene22578

    Posted

    That was one of the side effects of Pred. for me and it is the only one that I still have after being zero Pred. for more than four and a half years but then my skin is ageing along with the rest so maybe not the Pred. 

    Same as Eileen, it's my arms that always react. Banged my knee the other day and just have a regulation brownish bruise.

  • susan29426
    susan29426 carlene22578

    Posted

    I had them all over my forearms until I got down to about 7 mg. Just got one at 6 mg, but it's the first in months.

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