I have a question about prednisone tapering and withdrawal/adrenal crisis.
I was started on 20 mg in prednisone on June 13 for UC flare. It
didn't work so I was upped to 30. That worked I was brought back down to
20, and my symptoms returned.I brought up again to 30 then 40 with no
relief. Sometime in mid-July my doc put me on 60 mg. I was on 60 mg for
about 3.5 weeks. When my flare was under control I was dropped down to
40 mg for 2 weeks, then started on a taper mid-august. At this time I
was also put on a steroid enema. I was brought down 10 mg a week until a
hit 20 mg then brought down 5 mg per week.Yesterday, after being on
just 5 mg for a full week I was told I could stop the prednisone and
start taking the enema every other night for a week. i skipped the enema
last night since I had taken the prednisone in the morning and figured
it would be better to skip that dose while I still had some prednisone
in me and take it tonight and skip tomorrow etc.My full taper on the
prednisone only took about a month and a week I guess.
Today I woke
up and was tired all day. I slept a lot. A few hours ago I got a
headache. I wonder whether I was taken off the prednisone too quickly.
The problem is, I'm PMSing right now too and being tired/getting
headaches is not completely uncommon for me. I called the doc and the
doc on call called back.he was nice but wasn't very helpful. He just
said if anything got worse to go to the ER.Well duh, doc.
Would I be nuts to wait until Mon to call my regular doc and see if the
headache/sleepiness subside? If I were having some kind of adrenal
crisis would I be really sick and "know" it or would i just slip into
shock with no warning?I'm not sure how all this works and the only doc I
can get in touch with right now isn't very helpful. I had no other
problems at all during my taper.I still plan on taking the
enema tonight and I'm wondering if that would stave off any adrenal
issues since it's still a steroid?
Hi, I'm a 21yr old female with Crohn's. I ....
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