Question:
Hi, Can someone please explain why is it so Dangerous to reduce the dose of prednisone for eg: drop from 25 down to five without tapering it down. I know I am not to do that but I have not been told why?????? Thanks in advance. Gail.
Response:
Hi Gail, You will hurt your adrenal glands and they could shut down. The adrenals are responsible for many important body functions including regulating your heart. Our bodies normally produce a form of steriod and when we supplement this our adrenals reduce what they manufacture. To abruptly stop prednisone doesn’t allow time for the adrenals to start to manufacture steriods again Well, that’s in really simplified terms. DON’T ever go from 25 mg to 5 mg your asking for major problems you must taper slowly. I personally think people with auto immune disease have to taper slower then people without chronic disease because of flares that happen if we taper too fast IMHO ! Hope this answers your question 
Regards, socjog
Response:
In article <38e73…@pink.one.net.au>, Gail <el…@one.net.au> writes >Hi, >Can someone please explain why is it so Dangerous to reduce the dose of >prednisone for eg: >drop from 25 down to five without tapering it down. I know I am not to do >that but I have not been told why?????? >Thanks in advance. >Gail.
It replaces the natural steroid made by your adrenal glands. If you just stop it (or drastically reduce it), and the glands fail to restart, you soon die. — Andy For Austrian philately: <URL:http://www.kitzbuhel.demon.co.uk/austamps/> For Lupus: <URL:http://www.kitzbuhel.demon.co.uk/lupus/> For my other interests: <URL:http://www.kitzbuhel.demon.co.uk/>
Response:
Gail–you musn’t ever try to taper yourself off of the prednisone without direct supervision of your doc. Your adrenal glands may take months to "kick-start" after being in a latent stage for so long. You could die–just as Andy said. Follow the tapering schedule your doctor gave you. When tapering off steroids, you may experience increased discomfort, but usually after a few weeks this dissapates and you can again lower your dose. COMMUNICATION AND SUPPORT IS VITAL AT THIS TIME! You may or may not feel more crummy, but report anything out of the ordinary to your doc- —-kim * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful
Response:
<<Can someone please explain why is it so Dangerous to reduce the dose of prednisone for eg: drop from 25 down to five without tapering it down. I know I am not to do that but I have not been told why??????>> It would probably be dangerous to do that if you’ve been on long term steroids (more than 3 months); however, if you’ve been on them for less than a month, then a fast taper isn’t likely to be dangerous at all. With 2-3 months of steroid treatment, tapers are usually still fairly quick, though not quite as fast as with treatment that’s been less than a month in duration. If you’ve been on steroid treatment long term though, you might call your doctor and discuss the taper with him letting him know you’re not comfortable with such a large, abrupt change and that you have serious concerns about its safety. Sandra
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