Severe backache

[ingemlb]

Just wondering if anyone else has had excruciating backache centre of back as part of pred withdrawal/tapering?
Mine started on and off with intermittent twinges shortly after reducing the pred. Then the twinges turned into sharp pains that take your breath away. Feels like my back is breaking. Today it became constant no longer intermittent. Have just taken a pain tablet so will see what happens. But in general the withdrawal symptoms have practically put me out of action
as recent blood tests came back looking good (no active inflammatory disease) I don't believe it would be a flare.

[mishb]

Sometimes pred withdrawals can be so debilitating that you just have no option but to increase it a little bit, to take the edge off.
it's just not always textbook symptoms.

I'm certain that your specialists wouldn't want you to be in this much pain during a pred decrease, withdrawal symptoms or not.

I would go up 5mg or even 10mg and then try a drop of 2.5mg again in a couple of days time.

What amount are you on currently?

[ingemlb]

Thanks Michelle. I am now on 25 mg. I took 2 Panadol osteo and that helped with the pain. Will see if I can manage on that. If not will see if increasing pred fixes it but I am terribly keen to cope with a lower dose

[Alysia]

I don't remember reading here about backache as a result of pred reduction. only about headaches.
you should better go to your doc to check it. I am sorry for your pains. get well soon

[ingemlb]

Funny enough Alysia I read about Flank pain as part of prednisolone reduction. Also under withdrawal symptoms they list joint pain.

Another thing I don't know is if inflammation in bones shows up in blood tests. I apparently have a lot of inflammation in my bones which was discovered during a bone scan in hospital. I may need to have another one done if this pain doesn't improve.


Also had a very bad hypo yesterday which was rather disappointing after having reduced the insulin and no hypos for a few days. So if this doesn't' settle down soon I think I'll just go back to hospital and let them stabilise me there.
Anyway woke up without pain this morning so .. touch wood. Hope it stays this way today.

[windchime]

Inge try 27.5 mg and see if that stops the pain rather than all the way back to 30 mg. It's possible that you're tapering too fast. I know that I've tried to get to 10 mg three times and every time I make it I can't take the pain and have to up it back to 20 mg and start all over again. This time I've been tapering at 1 mg every two weeks. So far so good as I'm down to 11 mg. It's slow, but better that than the pain. Just a thought.

[ingemlb]

Thanks Cindy. I will keep that in mind. At the moment I am thinking if I can manage with pain meds maybe it's worth pushing ahead. However if it gets any worse will have to increase the pred It's all so confusing. Not sure what's better. Taking pain meds and resting to help with the withdrawal or keep putting the pred up again The longer I stay on higher doses of pred the less likely the diabetes will reverse itself. So I have a few reasons for trying to get off it. The other one is we need to know if the MTX is doing it's job and whilst I am on higher dose Pred it's difficult to tell if the MTX is the right drug

Wish it were more clear cut. Also trying to tell the difference between withdrawal and flare!!!!

[windchime]

Please just remember that you can't force things to work out the way you want them to. You may harm yourself by trying. Going up 2.5 mg for an extra week or two won't make that big of difference, I don't think. When you do your next taper I would not do a full 5 mg I would do the 2.5 mg.

[Alysia]

Funny enough Alysia I read about Flank pain as part of prednisolone reduction. Also under withdrawal symptoms they list joint pain.

Another thing I don't know is if inflammation in bones shows up in blood tests. I apparently have a lot of inflammation in my bones which was discovered during a bone scan in hospital. I may need to have another one done if this pain doesn't improve.


Also had a very bad hypo yesterday which was rather disappointing after having reduced the insulin and no hypos for a few days. So if this doesn't' settle down soon I think I'll just go back to hospital and let them stabilise me there.
Anyway woke up without pain this morning so .. touch wood. Hope it stays this way today.

I am sorry for giving wrong info. thanks for your clarification. I am glad that its over. I hope that other things will get better soon

[ingemlb]

Sadly Alysia it's not over yet. I wake up without pain. Resting helps. The pain then kicks in as soon as I try to move around. Yesterday decided to go back onto regular Panadol Osteo which is 650 mg Paracetemol. I am taking 2 of them 3x a day to get all round cover. So I take one dose very early in the morning then one around lunch and one after dinner then nothing until the next morning. This worked last night as I ended up in bed by 8pm and slept though until 5am. Unfortunately I have to get up 5am and eat or I would be facing another hypo.

Which brings me to the main reason Cindy I don't want to muck around with the pred and go up again. I am having a hell of a time with the blood sugar stabilisation. First few days after reducing the Insulin I stopped getting hypos. Then the day before yesterday I had another one. Yesterday none. But the sugar seems to climb up very high after dinner due to the pred. So if I am just borderline keeping the sugar low enough in the evenings without causing hypos during the night and the mornings. If I go up again with the pred now I will need to go up with the insulin as well. Then I will be back in the same boat with the hypos. Hence my thoughts were that if this is all likely due to pred tapering then if can manage the unpleasant side effects using pain meds and maybe some occasional valium I am better off than keep going up and down with the pred.

Apart from making me feel miserable can the pred tapering cause damage?

This is now my 7th day on 25 mg of pred. Before that I was 3 weeks on 30 mg. It seemed to take me 2 weeks to settle after dropping from 35 to 30mg. The last few days before my appointment with my Rheumy early last week I had managed to wean off all pain meds. So I was hoping that maybe it just takes me the full 2 weeks to get over this. Which makes me think I should probably wait an extra week before tapering down again and I hear your point about trying to taper by 2.5 mg. I may do it that way next taper and see if that is less painful.

What had me really puzzled was the new pain in the dead centre of the back. Feels like in the area of the spine. However I just recently had an MRI of the spine and my Ophthalmologist said it looked unusually good for someone my age. So nothing wrong with the spine apart from soft tissue inflammation. However this pain feels like the back is breaking But only after I move around a bit. Then it stays. However the paracetemol makes it bearable.

Thanks all so much for your support. It is good to be able to talk about this and get some better insight by hearing how others cope. I am so new with all of this.

Anyway as I mentioned above if I can't get on top of this in the next few days I am heading back to hospital. Mainly as I am too scared re getting the blood glucose also under control.