A Cautionary Tale and a Question

[Sojourn12]

Hello all! I almost made it. After 5 years, I was between 0.5 and 0 pred, the very last step in my super slow and mostly uneventful taper. Alas, I walked too far with woefully insufficient footwear and tore the meniscus in my "good" knee. Within a week, I felt strong bilateral shoulder and neck pain--my signs of a PMR flare. On advice from my rheumatologist, I very reluctantly upped my dosage to 3 mg pred, which I haven't been at for well over a year. Upping the dose did the trick immediately and my shoulder and neck pain disappeared. To my surprise, however, I felt unusually weepy, emotional, irritable, and exhausted without being able to sleep. Is it possible or has it been anyone's experience that such a relatively small increase and such a low dosage could cause such side effects? My knee is already healing nicely without surgery and I'm likely to resume my taper before too long, so, while disappointing, this is not a major setback. Thanks for any insight, Jane

[PMRpro Ambassador]

How long have you been at 3mg? Do you still need the full 3mg? Could you come down slightly already?

Can't help on the return of the wobbles - never been that low! - but I imagine adrenals can have a really good paddy whichever way you have to move the dose!

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Would say all those feelings are due to adrenals not yet up to speed. Very typical… and whilst they may have been chugging along okay when things were going smoothly as soon as they needed to leap into action following the damage to your knee [as they would have pre Pred] then they struggled.

It can take up to 12 months after stopping Pred entirely for them to be back to full function, something we often warn about on here.

Have a look at this from FAQs -

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...