How long can I be on an emergency pred dose, and still go back to where I was?

[calibriel]

Thank you for all your help in the past.

I was temporarily admitted to hospital yesterday with what looked like anaphylactic shock - my tongue was very swollen - but it was rediagnosed when I was there as angiodema as I had no other symptoms. No known cause was found: could be a reaction to one of my blood pressure meds; or possibly an allergy, because I have also had urticaria for some weeks, but there was no obvious trigger: I had not used or eaten anything new. All this makes sense to me so far; I have been under a lot of mental and physical stress recently, and everyone, including me, thinks that was a factor. My question is a simple one about pred dosage.

My suspect bp med has been changed, and I was sent home on anthistamine (cetrizine) and a booster pred dose. I have felt well on all these so far. My current pred dose is 3mg, hoping to reduce soon to 2.5 (postponed yet again). The doctor talked about 3 days on 30mg. I was given 30mg in hospital; but also given 3 days-worth to bring home. My understanding was that I would be given 2 days-worth to make a total of 3 days, and my instinct is only to take it on 2 more days, because I don’t want to encounter problems when I drop back down again. I think this is a dispensing error. What do you sage heads think? I don’t want to go against the dr, but I am absolutely sure trying to get back to him for clarification would be fruitless.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

It is only the same as anyone else using pred for an allergic reaction or asthma or whatever. You take a short 5-day course, 30-40mg is standard, and stop. For anyone else their baseline is zero pred, your baseline is 3mg. but that makes no difference.

I would take the total of 5 days of 30mg pred and stop, save the rest for an emergency! A lot of the amount dispensed from hospital depends on dates requested and discharge days - but better to have too much than not enough and not be able to get more. But even taking 30mg for 6 days will make little difference.