Day 5 on prednisone and worse, want to stop

Do not stop prednisone cold! For some people, it irks immediately, for others it may take time. But on 45mg, you risk serious side effects if you stop it ithout a taper, regardless of how long you gave been taking it. I would call your GI, but give it time to work.

Like I had said yesterday on another of your posts: Stick with it, it might take more time for you to notice a difference. It took a couple weeks for me. Being in a bad flare sucks beyond what words can describe, I was there at the start of this year so I can relate, however, you need to stick with your meds and hang in the there till the meds start kicking in.

It took literally weeks for me to notice a difference with steroids. Give it time. And for the love of God do not just stop taking it, especially if you are flaring. Stopping cold turkey while flaring could potentially cause much worse symptoms (I learned by doing). Soystud I laughed sooo hard when I read your post!

I was on 40mg of pred for several weeks before it started working and went was up to 60mg because it was such a terrible UC flare (partially caused by a side effect to Lialda I think). Now tapering at 20mg and dropping 5 mg a week. Prednisone is the worst but it works, even if it takes a lil while. Just make sure you're taking 20mg every 12 hours or so so it stays in your system, otherwise it'll mess w you alot more. Also as soon as the bleeding stops I'd speak w doc about tapering cuz it takes awhile to knock it down. Hope you feel better soon!

Are you also using rectal enemas? You should be using either steroid enemas or mesalamine enemas in addition to oral meds. Retention enemas are standard treatment protocol for proctitis. If your doctor did not RX them to you find another doctor.

I cannot give opinion on prednisone oral but would ask your doctor about it. He/she will probably say you haven't taken it long enough. if it were me and I got worse by 2 weeks I'd get off it but would have been using rectal meds meanwhile. Rectal steroids and mesalamine meds are not systemic like oral prednisone, meaning they treat the surface of your colon/rectum not go in your bloodstream (or only barely).

I'm sort of on the same boat as you, laughingduck.

I'm at 30mg prednisone tapering now since it's been a week from taking 40mg.

I'm on LDN, scd diet, and Pentasa too.
I will be going on humira next Tuesday.

Let me know how you're doing Laughingduck.

Thanks for the replies. I spoke with my doc and she said it's not supposed to make me worse and that I likely have some sort of infection. She said to taper off it over a few days and gave me a requisition for stool tests.

I have tried rectal meds (salofk enemas and suppositories), cortifoam enemas, and an on 4.8g mezavant (i think that is the same as asacol, a once per day mesalamine pill). Maybe an infection would explain why they also dont work!

Since being on prednisone I've actually felt the inflammation rise upwards which is a bit scary, hoping to get this figured out soon!

laughingduck said...
So now I'm having a pretty major bleed. I really hope getting off Prednisone helps, I only tapered to 40mg yesterday. I've never been this bad, even when I was bad! Has anyone else been through this? Prednisone making you worse?? Just to be clear again, I was not in a major flare, just a stubborn one. I only had proctitis, 3-4 bm's with some blood per day. Now I have more bm's and and just pooping blood like crazy, I've never been like that before :(. She said to taper 5mg every 1-2 days but may drop to 20 today, now that I know it is making me much worse.

unless you've been taking the pred for longer then a week you should just be able to stop it and be fine. if you were on it for weeks however and you just stopped you'd be in for a bad time


i think you would be much better treated with mesalazine enemas and suppositories

if you havnt already tried them you have to! over the years they were the meds with the least side effects for me and the best results

canadagal said...
IMO it is also possible you may just not be responding to the steroids (yet or ever) and your flare (as well as your disease ) had escalated.

PRednisone can take some time to work.. you only started recently. Why did you start at all? what was your symptoms, how long have you been flaring? when was your last scope? have you been on steroids before?

I also had 'proctitis' only.... until this last flare... now it is full out severe pancolitis as of my last in hospital scope. Things do change.

I've been in this flare for a long time. I've never been on steroids before, I've tried all sorts of other meds though. It has been more or less stable for months, I think more than a coincidence that it's flared up the same time I started prednisone. The only reason I decided to start now was because my OH is a teacher with summer's off so decided to start it while he was home to help with my daughter (my doctor has been urging me to try it for over a year but I am stubborn). A month ago we all got a bit of a tummy bug in my house, my 21 month old threw up a few times over the course of a week and has not had normal poops since (slowly getting better). OH was also sick. I'm guessing we did all pick up some sort of bug and that I was fighting it off until I started the prednisone. I took 20mg this morning. Hopefully the quick on and quick off the prednisone won't flare things up beyond the infection. Argh, this is the last thing I need right now! Doesn't help that my doctor is now away on vacation and it's a long weekend so if I need more questions answered or thing go further downhill I have to go to er I guess.

I've been on it for about 2 weeks now. It's amazing that during the time i'm awake. i'd go like once, but when i'm sleeping i'm waking up like 2-3 times times to go. How long does it normally take to get outta that phase? I'm currently on 30 mg's and tried 20 for one day, and had to go a lot more with looser stools, so i bumped it back to 30 .. what do you guys think? i'm going to add canasa to my regime again, doctor told me to stop for a couple days, cause i've been seeing blood after using it, but that might just be a coincidence cause my stool was firming up and maybe irritating my colon?

Thanks Quincy, I hope I get answers soon too. In a way this is almost a good thing, it MAY mean I have a very treatable infection. I'm not getting my hopes up too much though. I am seeing some improvement today, after halving my dose to 20mg yesterday. I had no taper symptoms and am just not going to take anything today. So it definitely was the prednisone making me worse. I almost hesitate to post this on a public forum as I know it's pretty rare (my doctor had never seen it before) and don't want other people cutting back their doses to get better too! But there you have it, it can happen.

OfficerwithUC, I hope things look up for you soon. I've actually noticed I bleed more with melamine enemas too, and have also wondered if that it because of a more formed stool. I don't have an answer for you, but you can know you aren't the only one!

Tiesto81, I really hope you feel better soon. I can't imagine having to be hospitalized to get iv steroids, and not even having it work! I hope the surgery goes well for you if you go that route.