Aadrenalin

[Robinsnest72]

Went to Reumy and he said my blood work was good. Reduce 1mg per month. Had blood work done yesterday and counts have gone up again. I am at 6mg presently. If your adrenal glands are trying to wake up does this effect your blood count, I do not go back to him till October and I do not know whether to increase pred or just leave alone. As far as symptom I am always stiff and sore in the mornings but it wears off as day goes on. My best time of the day starts around 3 in the afternoon and lasts till I head to bed at 9. I really require a lot of sleep.

[SnazzyD]

Sadly, the usual full blood count and inflammatory markers don’t change with adrenal function. When you say counts are up, do you mean inflammatory markers or other? What did your Rheumy say about reducing? Is there a dose where you had no pain?

[Robinsnest72 in reply to SnazzyD]

My ESR has gone from 8 to 10

CRP 3.4 to 4.8

WBC 11.6 Hi

Neutrophils 7.8 to 9.5

These readings were all low in June. He just says I am within range so reduce 1mg monthly and I go back in October. I do not think I am going to do this. Maybe I came down from 8mg to 6mg too quickly. I have always been stiff in mornings. That is why I split my dose. However, am trying to get it into one dose in the mornings as that is what he prefers.

[SnazzyD in reply to Robinsnest72]

I’d be more worried about the upward trend in the inflammation markers. The readings may be within the normal range but they may be raised for you and they are not going down. However, they do not tell you if they are raised for a reason other than PMR. Symptoms are more specific an indicator than any blood test. The white cell count may well be raised because Pred stimulates the product of Neutrophils, one of the white cells counted.

[piglette]

I was on 5mg and felt my adrenal glands were fighting coming back from their hols. Both my inflammation markers shot up to over one hundred. A couple of the doctors leapt into action thinking it may be cancer. After xrays and more blood tests all negative they backed off a bit and just suggested more blood tests. For the last lot of tests my CRP had gone up from 74 to 77 and another doctor phoned me to say it was due to PMR and doubled my dose to 10mg. Then said have more blood tests. I haven’t a clue why my blood markers went up the CRP had originally been 29. At this rate there won’t be any more blood left in me for them to test!! I still don’t know if it is the adrenal glands that are causing it, but neither do the doctors apparently. They just ignored me when I suggested it.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Forget about adrenaline and adrenal function for now. If your ESR and CRP are rising it is a sign your pred dose may be too low and inflammation is developing again.

Yes they are in range - for a population of 10,000+ healthy individuals. For you they have been lower and the approach now is to stop reducing and check the ESR and CRP in a couple of weeks unless you start to have symptoms or some other cause of rising inflammatory markers appears. Symptoms always trump blood markers but if the markers continue to rise and a trend is obvious, you have overshot the pred dose you need.

[Gary1310]

..if you are tapering as prescribed and doing well, then have a few minor, PMR symptoms........wouldn’t be good to take an Aspirin or Tylenol to see how it goes? My thinking is that it takes time for a body to adjust to the lower dose....but it is normal to feel minor twinges. Yes, sleep is a really good thing.