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Hi guys, its been awhile. I had surgery 3 weeks ago and was tapering pred before that. My doc told me to hold at 7.5 until after surgery and then go to 5.... so now- 3 weeks after, that is what i did. I feel so off today. I cant put a finger on it. Very exhausted and very emotional and just off....is this SERIOUSLY from going down by 2.5 mg and only for the last 2 days? I see the dr for post op on monday but hes an ob/gyn....
Go back to 7.5 and see if you feel better. If you do, you'll have a good notion that 2.5 mg was too big a drop. Ask your doc to Rx pred in 1 mg tabs so you can taper more slowly. I came down 1 mg/month (from 10) with no issues. In general, a slow taper is better because your adrenal glands have more time to adjust. There is also a chance that you'll have to be on some dosage of pred for the rest of your life. Compared to feeling " a little off" all the time, that may be an acceptable trade off.
I hear many times on here of people having trouble with small drops of pred like that. I have trouble with them even at a higher level, like around 10-15mg. The lowest I've gotten is 7.5. Remember that a drop of 2.5mg amounts to a much higher percentage when at around 5-7.5mg than it does at around 10-15mg. I agree with Pete and hope the doc will allow you some flexibility to manage the taper on your own sometimes. However, I've also heard of people getting through that first few uncomfortable days of taper and then having things fall into place a little better. This is hard to do, though, when you are trying to get work done or have other important things in life to deal with.
With 5mg pred I would sleep most of the day and get very little done. I went to 10mg about a week ago and now I'm too wired, but getting a lot done. This morning I cut it down to 7.5 and hope it is just right. So, yes, what you are feeling is probably normal. Pred takes a couple days to adjust from one dosage to another, so give it a bit of time. It's not instant.
Yes, below 10 mg is very hard. For me it takes until one week after pred went down. Sometimes I return to the high previous dose for one day and then reduce the next day, it makes me feel better.
Some people have had success with alternating doses when tapering. Like instead of just doing 7.5mg, do one day of 10mg. and the the next day 5 and then back to 10mg., for an average of 7.5. Some have said the lower dose day (or in some cases, no dose) will tend to "kick start" the adrenals. Then the next higher dose day will help avoid withdrawal symptoms and prepare you for the next lower dose day. After awhile of that, if trying to get to 5mg., you could then start alternating 7.5 and 5mg. Or whatever. I've seen different schedules mentioned. I haven't really tried it myself but have read of a couple of people on here who have done it and gotten off pred successfully that way. At the end, the might be alternating 5mg. with 0mg., or 2.5 with 0, or even some some sort of three-day alternation. Of course some of us may never get off pred, but getting down to 2.5 or 5mg. would be great. You might try a search of pred tapering schedules.