Posted by Victor (24.240.219.47) on December 08, 2001 at 19:31:28:
In Reply to: Victor...... posted by Donna on December 08, 2001 at 14:50:44:
Internal Medicine available at most medical libraries, actually an entire volume of books.
In it's most basic terms, instead of taking say 5 mg of presdnisone everyday, you take 10 mg every other day. Wison's devotes an entire chapter just to prednisone, I read it twice over ten years ago, it was loaded with graphs, charts, and information how alternate day therapy, that's what they called it, reduces the negative side effects of prednisone.
Ha, most doctors I have talked to never heard of it, some would get nasty, others would say they would look it up. Never encountered a medication with so much witchcraft and heresay involved.
You are refering to tapering, I can't recall the exact number but the dosages were very high for tapering, in the order of 200 mg or more per day. And I think they said but don't quote me if you can get down to 100 mg every other day, you can drop it at anytime.
Now some doctors would prescribe 2 mg per day, and have you taper down to 0.1 mg over months before dropping. An oral surgeon refused to remove the wisdom teeth from my son because he at that time was on a lower dose of prednisone. Just had to find a different oral surgeon which was good because the one that did remove his teeth was a hell of a lot better.
Would suggest reading Wilson's.