Prednisolone

[Blacksley]

As I have previous reported after many missteps through previous bad medical advice, I have managed over the last 16 months reduced my Prednisolone dosage from 15 to 2.5mg. So far with no flares (all my fingers and toes crossed). My wife has a bad chest infection which she has kindly started to share with me. If it gets bad I do already have in stock a rescue pack of antibiotics because a tendency to acquire infections. My question is if I up my dose of steroids to 30mg a day for 5 days (standard procedure for fight infections) can I then Revert back to my 2.5mg dose with out consequences or do I have to go back to my starting point of 15mg?

[SnazzyD]

Depends what your hike in dose is for, the chest infection or a PMR flare. If it is a standard chest infection protocol then you can drop back to 2.5mg. If it is because of a flare or you are having adrenal insufficiency, 30mg is way too high; better to follow the flare protocol in the FAQ’s. Personally I wouldn’t take an immunosuppressive 30mg with a chest infection without antibiotic cover. Better still talk it over with the GP also so that they can also record how many courses or either you have had to take,

[PMRpro Ambassador]

As I said on the other thread - you can drop straight back to 2.5mg from a 5 days 30mg course of pred if that is what the GP suggests. It's the same as if you weren't on pred - just the baseline is 2.5mg not zero.