Tapering my prednisone and feeling awful after exercise
Posted , 5 users are following.
Hello! I’ve been on prednisone for almost 2 years for an indefinite diagnosis: the symptoms are very like Polymyalgia rheumatica, which I had several years ago, but nothing is showing up in my blood tests. I have fibromyalgia and my doctor thinks it could be a flareup of that. It’s definitely stress-related.
Being on steroids has definitely helped, but when I got down to 3 mg the pain flared up really badly, along with terrible exhaustion. I’m on 2 mg at the moment and some days I seem to get by (I have to push myself), but other days are really difficult.
I decided to have a swim yesterday as I haven’t been exercising, and today the pain has been absolutely awful, along with terrible muscle weakness and exhaustion. It’s not the usual muscle pain and tiredness after exercise.
Could I be reducing the prednisone too quickly?
Why would I be feeling so bad after the exercise?
Even though I’ve reduced the prednisone, I’ve actually put on weight.
My doctor said I could go up to 10mg if I want to, but I’m reluctant to do it.
I’d appreciate any thoughts you may have
Many thanks!
0 likes, 3 replies
peggy_56092 helen13358
Edited
That is a very fast taper of prednisone which certainly sounds like a flare if you started at 15 or 20 mgs. The average time for PMR remission is 5.9 years. At your low dose your adrenal glands most likely cannot begin to make the cortisol that they did before prednisone took over and you are also experiencing pain from them.You should slow taper, going only as low as to mop up the PMR inflammation created every morning about 2 am. I am in my fifth year of PMR and am gradually reducing from 4 to 3 1/2 mgs, giving the adrenals time to function again. Sometimes that takes a year. Some doctors still think PMR is over in two years. Look up the 2017 Mayo Clinic report on PMR and Prednisone study. PMR/inflammation does not always show up on blood tests because you are on prednisone. Too much exercising with PMR can damage your muscles. Your doctor's suggestion of upping to 10 mgs sounds reasonable. You might try asking questions on PMRGCAHealthUnlocked forum for more responses.
brenda88300 helen13358
Posted
Hi I have been treated for polymalgia I was on preds started on 40mg after slowly tapering stopped taking them 7 weeks ago getting aches and pains neck and shoulders feeling weak and tired I know this must be the affects of coming of these nasty tablets
Anhaga helen13358
Posted
You should never have continued tapering once you got to a dose that meant pain was creeping in again. It's good advice to go up to 10 for a week or so, then rapidly drop down, but stop above the place where you first felt pain starting again. You may experience a bit of pred withdrawal when you do this. If the pain lessens after a day or two, it's all good, but if it starts to increase you've overshot your lowest best dose again, and PMR is still too active. If it was 3, that's good, but maybe 4 was better? Any dose 5 or below has a minimum of side effects and benefits of taking pred outweigh side effects; untreated or inadequately treated PMR is worse whatever the dosage needed to manage your particular case.
Exercise, but with caution! You need exercise to maintain muscle tone, and if you've lost a lot, partly from inactivity and partly from pred and PMR, then you'll have to be more careful than back in the days when you were young and healthy! Onward and upward....