Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Prednisone - long term?

thanks cemc, that is good knowledge to have.

thanks rumble, that sounds similar to what cemc is saying too. and my rheumy had said 2-3 times a year would be fine. so will ask him for where he thinks the line is.

Somewhere I came across an equivalence chart for the different steroids. I'm pretty sure that 5 mg prednisolone is equal to 4 mg of methylpred, but can't remember any of the others.

I have been on steroids for years due to not tolerating other drugs well. I do get hyper on them on higher doses, have bone loss, adrenal and sleep issues but it helps bring down the inflammation and pain. I tried switching to hydrocortisone because it is less harmful to the body but my body flared horribly so I am back on a low dose of Prednisone daily unless I am in a bad flare. Then, my dose gets increased. My doc is encouraging me to get off Prednisone in the near future. Will most likely, go down the road of biologics once again to get off the daily steroids.

For me, Prednisone has been the most effective to treat my AS pain and I am thankful I have it when I need it to function to be a Mom.

Shari

i just did a little googling, and found this:

http://www.globalrph.com/corticocalc.htm

could be very helpful.

glad you brought this up, hadn't realized the 4 mg methylpred was equal to 20 mg hydrocortisone. had assumed, wrongly, that they were more similar. so the lower 4-5 mg hydrocortisone wouldn't be the same as 4 mg methylpred. thus could be safer, but like winter said for her, would that low a dose even be useful?

what was the dose of of the hydrocortisone?

what is the dose of the pred?

thanks for the info

Here are two equivalence charts that would be most useful here at KA: Steroid and narcotic. I've been able to work both of them with little problem. Hope they help you all.

steroid equivalence chart

narcotic equivalence chart

Hi Sue: My Prednisone dose was 2 mg a day. I stopped the Prednisone and switched over to hydrocortisone 10 mg spaced throughout the day. At first, I felt more immediate pain relief from the hydrocortisone but then I ended up in a bad flare about a month after stopping the Prednisone. I had no choice but to go back on the Prednisone for some pain relief.

Shari

thanks shari!

Hi Erika, You have gotten a lot of feedback from you question so I will just give you a little input from my experience with long term Prednisone. I took it for two and a half years 5mg a day. After the first few months, the Prednisone quit working, started having horrible side effects, had to take narcotics anyway, gained 30 pounds, and was finally taken off when my tendons became brittle and started to tear. That was 5 years ago and have had ongoing problems with rupturing tendons ever since.

Good luck with you decision

Cindy