Predisone 1st Timer

Hello!

I’ve had UC proctosigmoid for four years now and have never taken predisone. I’m allergic to all 5-ASA drugs so my doctor has had me on UCeris only and hydrocortenema when flaring. I’ve been flaring since November did one short two week course of enemas which helped but when stopped all came back. Fast forward she now wants me to starts predisone. I have high anxiety in general so I’m terrified. I was supposed to start it yesterday but am delaying it until my husband is home with me. Will a starting dose of 20mg for 4 days then tapering over two weeks really cause me to go loco? I expressed my concerns with her and she was adamant that I need to take it. Current symptoms - bms four times a day sometimes loose sometimes firm - little mucus a little blood but I have a hemmie and fissure so I can’t tell what it’s from and the most annoying is urgency. Occasionally I’ll have the unexpected fart mucus but not often. TIA for thoughts on predisone. Hopefully you can ease my anxious brain so I actually take it haha.

I actually fought back and was like why can’t I try another two weeks of the enemas and she said “you’ve been dealing with this since you were thirty and doing the enemas and your still flaring, it’s time to try predisone” however I’ve gone six plus months not flaring numerous times and aren’t you supposed to flare at times - though we all want remission. Taking uceris with predisone concerns me as well (steroid on top of steroid) I’m with you and feel like my symptoms don’t warrant the risk of me going crazier than i normally am but she wasn’t giving me any other option to try and get this under control. 😔 she’s my second GI and I’ve loved her until now. I’ve had a rough couple months which I think I started this flare my mom died and the company I worked for crap down. Sigh! I guess tomorrow I will swallow the predisone and pray it doesn’t make me insane. I’m dealing with panic attacks as is due to everything I don’t want to add to it at all.

What is your non-steroid plan to maintain your UC? If you cannot tolerate the mesalamines, then you need to be on either thiopurines (azathioprine/imuran/6mp) or biologics (remicade/humira) as maintenance meds.

The vast majority of us need maintenance meds, so you likely will too.

Prednisone is far more dangerous than any of the other medications we take. So you are better off on the others, than pred over the long term. It's all about balancing risk versus benefits. While it is true all meds have the potential for side effects, you have to ask your self what are the actual odds of getting one of those side effects for a given med? The odds of getting the side effects from the thiopurines and biologics are very remote and small, in fact most who take meds do not experience side effects from them. I take 6mp, remicade, and liada without any side effects from them at all, and I've been on that medication combo for many years now.

Are you taking any prescription medications for your healthy anxiety? It seems you have a lot of fear and it might be helpful to talk to a counselor and get some anti-anxiety meds. A number of us here have done this when we were struggling, and it helped a lot.

Let us know what happens. I have been holding back on reporting the results of my first low-dose (30mg) pred taper to see what happens next. I stopped bleeding within hours and it has not returned although I have been off all pred/cortisone for 3 weeks. I was happy crazy to be free of the worst symptoms. Lots of energy and even more patient with my family than usual... Lack of sleep was the only annoying side effect.

Are you sure they want you on pred and Uceris at the same time? I'd bet they will tell you to stop the Uceris. Pred hasn't given me panic attacks, but I do have Xanax. I have a lot of anxiety as well. Sorry to hear about your mom.