Prednisone and side effects

[lovemydoggy]

I have an appointment today and wish I’d thought of posting earlier. I think my PR has progressed to RA. If my rheumatologist diagnoses me I’m guessing she will prescribe another med. I’ve been on hydroxychloriquine for a number of years, but it’s doing nothing for me now. I’ve done two short tapers of a medrol pack, 4mg/6days. It helped tremendously, but I worry about the side effects. I don’t want to take it long term, however, I’m wondering if you guys might know or have experience with short tapers and adverse side effects. I have osteoporosis with a fracture and am pre diabetic. These are my primary concerns. I will consult the doctor, but thought throw it out there to you who are living it. I couldn’t find any information regarding short tapers online. TIA 🫤

[Fruitandnutcase]

Gosh, we could be twins! I am also prediabetic and have osteoporosis- fractured wrist and fractured sacrum.

When I was first diagnosed with sero negative inflammatory arthritis I did a short course of prednisolone. After my first dose it tailed off until after three months I had stopped completely and started on hydroxychloroquine. It was very tightly controlled.

I felt very well on it - like Superwoman to be honest, no roid rage and no over eating or weight gain —- but I was taking part in a medical study at that time and the blood tests showed I had developed steroid induced T2Diabetes which was a real downer for me. I was lucky and found a very good book written by an endocrinologist on how to eat your way out of T2D which fortunately worked for me.

To be honest I wouldn’t ever want to take prednisone again if I could avoid it because apart from my spell being T2D steroids are not really great news for bones.

[Darcy2000]

It is always personal but in my situation Prednisone has worked for me other than maybe brain fog ( jury is out on that could be unrelated) I am also on Methyltrexate 25 mg .

Tapering presently at 10 mg Pred with a 1 mg a month .Have tried before but once I hit 3 mg it reared its ugly head again

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to Darcy2000]

Oh it worked beautifully for me but I didn’t want to end up with T2D. That was a big shock. I expect the hydroxychloroquine would have kicked in eventually even without the prednisone. I didn’t even have any side effects- if I hadn’t been on that study it could have taken ages to discover I had become T2.