Prednisolone

[Lili18]

Hi guys,

Ive been on prednisolone 30 mg for the past two weeks and ive noticed that my face has started to swell, the dreaded moonface. The doctor said that he will reduce dose by 5 mg in a couple of days and then again after two weeks. From your experience, will this reduction make the swelling go down or do i have to come off the pred altogether for my face to go back to normal? Im so scared. Please reply. Every bit helps

[PMRpro]

It will probably go once you get to a low dose although some people do have to come off altogether.

Lots of us on the PMRGCAuk forum have had the problem - pred is the only opinion for us and when it is GCA then doses at well above 30mg for months. Many of us have reduced the fat deposit problem a lot by cutting carbs drastically (helps with the hunger too) - no processed carbs and restricted underground veg and fruit but above ground veg is good and relatively low carb so you can fill up on them. Making sure you aren't eating too much salt also helps as some of the weight gain is fluid.

[Melba1]

Ah it’s not nice is it feeling our appearance changes as well as all the other symptoms.

My moon face goes down at about 10mg. I’ve been on various doses of steroids for the past 15 months, between 7.5 and 40 and never managed below 7.5 without getting a flare but hopefully yours is just a short boost to get you back on track and everything will go back to normal fairly quickly.

My dad kindly pointed out the advantage of my moon face was that it made me look less wrinkly! 🙄 The positives are that the steroids can be absolutely magic with making us a lot better.

X

[Bake34]

My face was the same when I was on Pred, luckily now that I have stopped taking them it is back to normal

[Lili18 in reply to Bake34]

Hi Bake,

So your doc took you off pred altogether? Thats wonderful. I read somewhere that in mild lupus, pred is altogether removed. Am too scared to hope

[Sara_A]

Mine usually goes down once I get back on my normal maintenance dose of 5mgs daily ( been on this dose about 9-10 yrs now) I go up to 20mgs daily for a flare. I get bigger around my upper tummy area too with increased dose and usually get a major addiction for cereals crunchy nut cornflakes or coco pops by the boxes full!!!

So yeah I should think it will go down, have u noticed if u are eating more? Literally as soon as I increase I uncontrollably eat ridiculous amounts of above cereal between meals (people say increased appetite is rubbish but I know otherwise!)

Try not to worry but I know what u mean. I also have a fat lump on back of my neck which can also be related to long term steroid use so Ive got a double or even triple whammy of ugly steroiditis! And I’m only 39 and feel deformed from the things x