Prednisone-any Bad Reactions?

[firewatcher]

Hi all,

Has anyone had bad reactions to prednisone? I had to take 50mg after a bad reaction (large local swelling and redness) to my allergy shots, but the prednisone was worse! I got dizzy, severe unilateral headache, pale and sweaty, tachycardia and nausea. Is this an ANS thing? My allergist was shocked. Anybody else do this?

Jennifer

[Megan]

I've only ever had what I've been told are typical reactions to prednisone-weight gain, nausea, hunger, sometimes a headache. I've never had dizziness. Have you asked your doctor if any of those symptoms happen to "normal" people?

Meg

[mkoven]

I get very tachy on steroids and have terrible ans flares when I come off.

[dsdmom]

I'm on 20mg of prednisone right now but started at 60 - I had weird dizziness/vision issues at first. Right now I don't know what's what - what's ans problems and what is prednisone problems. I am having a HORRENDOUS time lowering from 20mg...even to 19mg gives me terrible ans flares...so I've been putting it off since I've been on vacation. But I see my doc on the 8th and know we're going to have to get me off this....I am just not looking forward to it. Anyway, I think it is possible to get all sorts of weird reactions to this drug - it is powerful stuff. And every time I've called my doc with some weird thing - like getting really shaky, anxious or angry..he is not in the least bit surprised. Thinks that the autonomic issues make it all unpredictable.

[mkoven]

I really hate prednisone. The last time I had to take steroids, I asked to do methylprednisolone instead. I still had a lot of ans side effects on it and when coming off, but it made me less nutty. It's just as effective, just dosed a little differently. On prednisone, my spouse wants to be far away. On methylprednisolone, I am still enough myself to be bearable. But huge ans crash after. Steroids also raise my blood sugar. Nasty stuff, but sometimes unavoidable.

[dsdmom]

Yeah I'm really scared about coming off - because we are going to go very slow which is good but no matter what I do a crash is going to be unavoidable and since we'll be going slow it could take months.... mkoven do you remember how much you went down by?

[Angelika_23]

I have bad reactions to prednisone, and dexamethasone. I get "sunburn skin" which is where my skin FEELS like I have a sunburn, but I don't even have a rash. It hurts soooooo bad. Then I get the muscle pain and weakness. And yes, tachycardia. I live in fear of getting bronchitis or something that will make the doctor try to prescribe those horrible steroids.

Angela

[mkoven]

When I've been on it for one or two days, no taper, just a big crash! But then severald ays later I"m okay.

Two years ago I was on 60mgs for 3 weeks, it then took me about a month to come off. I was dropping 5-10mgs every two days until I hit 30, and I had to slow down. From what I remember, weaning starts to be a problem when you get close to the level that your body would make. You have to wake your own adrenals up to kick in, and they might be lazy if you've been on it for a while. When I got below 10 and then 5 was the hardest. I was cutting 1mg every several days. And even once I was off, I felt weak and shaky intermittently for several months. After stopping, I had about three months till I was back to baseline. I would be out shopping and then suddenly, completely run out of gas. It wasn't just feeling potsy, but weak, starving, and quivery--almost like a low blood sugar thing, though I never had it measured.

So I had to ask my doc to prescribe 5mg and then 1mg pills, so I could taper by tiny increments. But then it all depends how long you've been at the higher dose, how much time a taper may take. for many people my 3 week course could have been tapered faster. I think with my at -the- time undiagnosed ans issues it was a longer time frame.