Posted by Victor (24.240.219.47) on December 06, 2001 at 14:05:18:
In Reply to: Victor said this.... posted by Jack on December 06, 2001 at 13:29:23:
is that it can't be taken every day, shuts down the adrenal glands and makes you more susceptable to those little germs running around. I know people that are taking as much as 200 mg per day and have to hospitalize with such things as a cold. I use it only on business trips and only if I need it, will go months without poping a pill, that way the med is effective and gives an adrenal boost rather than cover it. 30 mg per day or more for long time users causes water weight gain the fat face and pimples plus leaves nasty marks, mostly on the back. For long term clusters I would think you would have to get up to over that 100 mg mark for it to be effective.
Prednisone never affected my O2 usage, so that is my prime abortative. It's been my experience that it does work very well, if I feel a cluster coming on when on the road, will start off with 5 mg and maybe go up to a 20 mg, can just feel the swelling go down in about 30 minutes.
Too bad you can't take it every day, osteoporosis is the worse side effect from long term usage.
Wilsons Principles of Internal Medicine has an entire chapter devoted to prednisone, good reading, they highly recommend alternate day therapy to minimize the side effects.
Prednisone is also used for an adrenal dificiency, I did have my glands tested after being off of prednisone for 90 days, they checked out okay. I also only buy Deltasone, same price as the generics and dirt cheap by other drug cost standards, think it's around 8 bucks for a bottle of 100 20 mg tablets. Schein makes a generic, that stuff sucks, get all the side effects but not the deswelling. They say all generics are the same, I used to believe that too.
Of course, these are just my experiences.