Predinisone reductions

[Psyborg]

Are there .5 mg tablets for Prednisone? I was wondering if I might try half the reduction instead, but I hate cutting the stupid pills in half

[Dirty Don]

Are there .5 mg tablets for Prednisone? I was wondering if I might try half the reduction instead, but I hate cutting the stupid pills in half

Nope, looked into it already...get a pill cutter at pharmacy...they help some...otherwise, what you miss today you'll get in tomorrow's half a dose!! LOL!

[Psyborg]

LOL

Think I'm going to check in with the doctor tomorrow. Finally realized I've been fatigued for a few weeks now. Not sure why, but it never dawns on me immediately. And my lab work was a bit off...probably not enough to worry about, but I had some protein in the urine for the first time ever so I'm wanting to be certain.

[Psyborg]

So I found this this morning:

Avoid ingesting vitamin D or prolonged exposure to the sun for at least one week before you start to taper your dosage. According to the Marshall Protocol, this can alleviate some of the symptoms that you can experience while weaning off of prednisone.

Read more: How to Taper the Dosage of Prednisone | eHow.com How to Taper the Dosage of Prednisone | eHow.com

That is interesting to me as I take a calcium + D every day. I wonder if it is causing the prednisone reduction problems. I'm having trouble not trying to stop outright (I Know its a really bad Idea). But the pain every few weeks when I reduce is aggravating

[Dirty Don]

That's interesting to me also as I live in AZ...always sunny...what do I do? Turn off the sun????? Seriously, my docs have never said anything like that in my tapering process...and, aside from getting over a bit of pneumonia right now, have never experienced any pain or such in the taper.

[drz]

I understand we take Vitamin D to help protect us against calcium loss that can lead to brittle bones. We are at risk for that because of the meds we take. So i suppose there might be some trade off here but none of my doctors ever talked to me about the vitamin D when I tapered from 60 mg to 5 mg. I just found I had to go slow and wait for side effects from taper to wane before i proceeded to level downward.

[Psyborg]

I'm going to try not taking the vitamins/calcium for a little while and see if it helps. The withdraw symptoms drive me nuts. Whenever I lower the prednisone my hips hurt like crazy and I walk like a little old man for a few weeks. I'm positive it's the withdraw because it always goes away, but pretty much just in time for another reduction.

[Tom]

I'll be watching your taper. Ive been trying to taper for 2 years but my breathing gets in the way. A year ago January, I was tapreing down from the 60 mg to 40 and on down to as far as 10mg and was scheduled to start 5 mg on FEB 5 2012. I ended up in the hospital and I was taken back to 40 mg and have been ther until a couple weeks ago and I was tapered to 30 and tommorow, the 13th I start 20 mg. Right now since my start from 40 mg, my right knee is causing me pain, hands are both swollen and sore. My ankles are sore and filled with fluid. Dont know if its the kidneys or the COPD. Last time I was in the hospital back in November, the on duty pulmo noted after looking at records that my breathing gets worse when I taper. I told him that my regular Drs had come to to the same conclusion. So we will see how this goes. But for now I will watch to see how your reduction goes. BTW, the 40 for the last year had no positive effect on my COPD, hence the suggestion of a lung transplant. GOOD LUCK.

[mishb]

I dropped from 5mg to 4 on the 2nd January and now I need to go, maybe a half or even one lower.
I have some more aches than usual but they are not overly painful.
My nose is a bit more stuffed up than usual and a little more blood.

I'm a little hesitant (scared actually) to go any lower but I must give it a try.
I'll speak to my GP on Friday and see what he thinks about whether to go lower, and if yes, by how much.

I've still got another 4 months to get to the proposed 2.5mg that my rheumy would like to see.....so I can take it fairly easy

Best of luck ...... to all of us.

[pberggren1]

Bob, I would personally message Sangye about this before making any choices or changes in this regard.