Prednisone withdrawal and adrenal gland exhaustion

Michelle wrote:

My dad has been on Prednisone for Crohn's Disease for 28 years, he is 50 years old. He has worse withdrawls than a Heroin Addict. One Dr tells us he will die if he stays on it. He has developed diabetes, congested heart failure, bones are depreciating, high blood pressure, and everything inbetween. When he tried to go down off of it gradually, he breaks out in every crevice of his body- eyelids, arm pits, behind his knees, everywhere. The rash he gets is red, raw, seeping, and has a foul odor, and makes his skin peel. Does anybody know of any way or medicine or anything- to help with the withdrawls. He has also experienced every symptom mentioned in the previous posts. Is there a natural remedy, or a medicaine to help the Adrenal Gland to adjust? Or any kind of medicine to reverse or stop these effects? God Bless each of you, and please if anyone has any info, please post it. We're desperate for any info. If we dont do something quickly... I'm going to lose my dad. Thanks for all your help!- Michelle, Indiana

MWG wrote:

Hello,
I've never had any serious health issues. I recently had a rash on my chest and back that caused me to go to the Dr. He prescribed 50 mg of prednisone a day for 7 days. I'm a female weighing 130 lbs. By day 4 I couldn't function because I was feeling severly depressed and confused. I stopped taking it immediately and it has now been a week and I'm still feeling very down, confused, extremely exhausted, frustrated and have been having random body aches. When will it go away?! I just want my life to go back to normal. The rash is slowly coming back, but I'd prefer to deal with it and live my life then deal with this. When will I feel better and back to normal?

veeman wrote:

To anyone trying to get off prednisone good luck and keep trying. I was on between 60 mg and 5mg of prednisone for 11 years. I have not taken any since late September of this year. Even now I have severe leg cramps and severe shoulder aches especially at night. I am tired and always wondering if it is the withdrawal or my condition. I think now most of the pain has been the withdrawel of a real nasty medication. I have recurrent pericarditis and psoriatic arthritis. I have been taking Embrel with great success to help me wean off the roids. This worked great and also helped my psoriasis really well. The best advice I can give to get to no prednisone is this.
1. No alcohol at all- alcohol lowers the effect of the steriod and makes for more withdrawals and more condition symptoms.
2. Drink water- Drink as much water in a day that you can, I notice on the days that I drink more even now. Usually the more I drink the less sore I am.
3. Low sugar and low carbs- This works for me
4. Hang in there- we all now it weening sucks but try to keep stress down and keep positive
5. I also on occassion will take Ultram or aleve for pain with some results in a pinch. I also take Calcium, Magnesium, Glucosimine, and a good Multi with Ginsing in it for some energy. Natures Plus is great.
I tapered a bunch of different ways and never got to zero before. This last time I listened to me instead of listening to Docs that said you should not feel any different on one half of a milligram less. Once I hit about 7 mg I went down a half a milligram every two weeks. And I noticed for the first few days of this regiment I was tired, so maybe you should ween on Friday if you have the weekends off to let your body adjust a bit before going back to work. Well I hope this has been helpful to anyone going through this. I have heard even though you get to zero it can take up to six months to get prednisone out of your system, that is one strong drug. Good Luck all!

deener wrote:

Hi guys....
New to this forum....My husband has had RA for 5 yrs and has been on preds 1 1/2-5 milligram pills....He is looking to cut down but has tried for one month now. He went through extreme withdrawal, the shakes, the night sweats, the food allergies you name it....temp drop...
Found out it is because when you go off Preds your adrenal glands need to produce cortisol on their own because preds supply your body with the cortisol...We know what it is just need to know how long it takes to rebuild the adrenal glands and how long to you have to suffer before it gets better....My husband cannot eat anything as he has allergies to almost everything right now a sure sign of Adrenal Gland problems....I was successful in getting off prednisone after three years of use with dosage as high 20 mg. I started in 2003 and ended in 2006 it is now 2011 and many of my withdrawal problems have subsided I beieve this to be because I used a vegetarian diet consisting of juices freshly made. Perhaps this method help you. The main thing recovering your a regaining the function of your adrenal gland is to focus on an alkaline regimen! I earnestly hope this infrmation will be of help to you.
HELP US-WE NEED TO KNOW>>>> THANKS

Richard Forniss wrote:

<quoted text>I was successful in getting off prednisone after three years of use with dosage as high 20 mg. I started in 2003 and ended in 2006 it is now 2011 and many of my withdrawal problems have subsided I beieve this to be because I used a vegetarian diet consisting of juices freshly made. Perhaps this method help you. The main thing recovering your a regaining the function of your adrenal gland is to focus on an alkaline regimen! I earnestly hope this infrmation will be of help to you.

Tim wrote:

About twice a year I get an RA flare-up bad enough to take a short burst of prednisone, which I keep in the house for these emergencies. This amounts to 2 or 3 weeks of pred including the weening period. The last time I did this, even with the weening period, my RA came roaring back much worse than before I took the short burst. My rheumatologist immediately put me back on the prednisone for a longer period of time and then a month-long weening period that even counted quarter tablets. This time the weening off was so slow that it worked. This makes me leery to do this again, although taking the prednisone makes me feel energetic like I don't have RA.......for a while at least. Anyone have the same experience?