7 Days of Pred -- Steroid Warning Network

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Date Posted: 02:17:36 01/13/10 Wed
Author: William (Shocked)
Subject: 7 Days of Pred

Hello. Thanks for the website/forum.

I have a few questions concerning my mother who finished a course of prednisone for 7 days at 40mg/day about a month ago, no tapering. The background to the treatment is that she had a very bad cough that the doctor believed was about to turn into pneumonia. She was given the prednisone but no antibiotics or anything else. My mother was a very physically and mentally active 59 year old up until the week of prednisone.
Immediately after she had finished the treatment, she started to undergo extreme sensitivity to her skin followed by aching/stabbing pains to her joints, particularly her hands and hips. The joints also started popping, grinding and clicking whenever she moved them, a bit like when you crack your fingers. The pain is starting to go away now after a month.
After the initial week of extreme pain she started on the fatigue side of the symptoms: this is when we contacted her doctor who cheerfully told us that nothing was wrong. The symptoms manifested themselves in that she felt extremely weak all of the time but especially after she had eaten, however her appetite had also disappeared too by this time and getting her to eat anything was very difficult anyway. We started researching into the effects of these drugs and found out that prednisone was a steroid (something that the doctor had neglected to inform us, along with not taking if you suffer from cold sores, glaucoma or are under extreme stress) we also found out all about Addison�s; which made us ask the doctor about a blood test. The test was duly taken at 9:30 am by a confused nurse who had never heard of Cortisol approximately 2 hrs after my mother had woken up: it told us that nothing was wrong with my mother. By this time the cough had come back with a vengeance for which the good doctor prescribed Claritin, an antihistamol for hay fever!?
Anyway a month later, we have now got a good idea of what is wrong with her, she�s taking some natural adrenal support medicine (liquorice vita B and C etc) she is eating tiny meals every two hours or so and the pain is subsiding. Unfortunately she is now starting to suffer from what she calls �cold inside� symptoms and extreme sweating, hallucinations and aches; particularly at night. She still hasn�t made it out of bed properly and can�t contemplate actually doing anything and is starting to get despondent that this will never stop. The doctor is ignoring her and has not contacted us for 2wks or so and is adamant that there is nothing wrong.
Does anyone have any advice as to how long this will last; if we can do anything else and if the doctor was being a little negligent is prescribing what this medication?

Thanks
Bill

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Replies:

Re: 7 Days of Pred -- Leslie (Concerned), 23:57:22 01/13/10 Wed
- Re: 7 Days of Pred -- Ivy Shapiro (Understanding), 06:29:28 01/15/10 Fri