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[Guest guest]

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Like Mojo, I didn't have a tremendous amount of problems until I went below 10 mg daily on prednisone. However, I did have some problems with each decrease. I was (and still am) on prednisone for autoimmune liver disease (autoimmune hepatitis or AIH specifically). I was VERY lucky that the highest dose I was on was 20 mg daily. My rheumy was pretty conservative and when she started lowering it, she dropped it 2.5 mg a day every two weeks til we got down to 10 mg a day. I had some increased pain but it was bearable. I switched to a new GI in June 2003. He added imuran (an immunosuppressant) to my drug regimen so he could further reduce the prednisone. I was quite thankful as I was beginning to have terrible problems with fluid retention and was definitely getting the 'moon' face. I began the prednisone in Jan 2003 and didn't put on any weight until about May 2003. However, I'm an odd case because I've had a gastric bypass (weight loss surgery - and no it didn't cause or make worse any of my health problems). I can no longer physically eat the portions of food that I used to be able to eat. Of course the gastric bypass doesn't prevent me from eating smaller quantities every hour around the clock if I wanted to! Also, I have chronic pancreatitis and when I'm having a flare, food is the last thing I want! In fact, at one point, around Feb 03, my pcp was telling me he did not want me to lose another pound and that I absolutely HAD to eat. He and I found that quite humourous that he had to say that to a woman who only 15 months earlier had been on the borderline of morbidly obese (my BMI was 38.5 and 40 and greater is considered morbidly obese; I was only 'seriously obese', but given another month or so, I'm sure I'd have reached the 40+ BMI range). I hope I'm not offending anyone. I'm just trying to say that if not for the gastric bypass and having chronic pancreatitis, I am quite sure I'd have easily put on 50 lbs. around Aug 03, the GI reduced my pred from 10 down to 5 mg a day. I have never hurt so bad in my life! I was in horrible pain and had horrible mood swings. I would have been much better off to go down only 1 mg per month but the GI told me to go down 5 mg and I was so anxious to be rid of the prednisone that I did as he said even though I really knew it was too quick.

Take care and hang in there. It is absolutely normal to have major side effects when reducing the prednisone dose.