Immune suppression effect: 150mg Imuran is like __mg prednisone?

[psudad]

Hi All -- My wife asked me an interesting question today: "how much is your immune system being suppressed by Imuran-only compared to the ritux+pred combo you were on when you were working towards remission?" Basically I think she's wondering whether she needs to worry as much as she did earlier in the year about me getting a cold/infection!

Background: I had two infusions of ritux in December 2013 and a gradual taper of pred for the first six months of 2014 -- starting with 3 day pulse in Dec and then 60mg*30days, moving down to 5mg by July. I'm now on a 2yr maintenance run of 150mg Imuran.

So the prednisone is out of my system, and from what I understand about Rituximab it is probably also out of my system (12 months post-infusion). So the only immune-suppressant i have in me is the 150mg Imuran.

Thanks for any thoughts on this -- and happy new year to all!

[Pete]

I'm guessing your doc would answer your question with an "I don't know." If you're off Pred and asymptomatic, you're in a pretty good place. My question would be, "Can I reduce/get off immuran any sooner?"

Strictly speaking, pred is an anti-inflammatory rather than an immunosuppressant. When you're on both immunosuppressant and anti-inflammatories, your doc is trying to make you comfortable and get the disease under control.