Prednisone Side Effects and Withdrawal Symptoms

I can certainly empathize with your thin skin issue!!
I do have to be careful not to scrape, cut or bang my arms on things! My skin is dry and if I don’t put lotion on it I will get the itchies and I’ll scratch it and then it looks like one of our cats scratched my arm! We do have to keep our kitties claws trimmed.
I have been on prednisone off and on short term doses for over 50 years. Long term use has only been in the last 2 years when I was diagnosed with PMR. I also was taking one low dose aspirin tablet a day as a preventative to possible heart issues or blood clots. I stopped taking the aspirin cause I was just getting awful bruises on my arms. So I’m wondering if the prednisone and the aspirin together was just too much blood thinning? Do you use any low dose aspirin or any other NSAIDS?
I never had your red eye issue, though it does sound like it might be tied in with your prednisone use.
Wishing you well on this health journey and that those red eyes will go away when you finally taper off your prednisone!!

I have not had red eyes related to taking prednisone but the drug affects the body in so many ways that it doesn't surprise me. Prednisone knocks down the immune system so maybe you have a low-grade eye infection that increases on higher prednisone doses. My main eye symptom has been huge bags under my eyes. Prednisone causes thin skin and fluid retention so that explains it. My forearms and hands always have cuts and bruises since being on prednisone but it is MUCH better now that I am on a lower dose (5.5 mg).

Thank you! Nice to hear some encouraging words. I've been to three specialists and none of them could find anything wrong with my eyes to account for the extreme redness. But since it went away when I got below 10 mg, I'm crossing my fingers I can taper enough this time to make it go away and stay away. I have the huge bags, too! The crazy thing is that I don't just have regular bags, I have a little puffy triangle below the corner of each outer eye. Small but noticeable. Bags on top of bags. lol Here is a photo of my arm taken recently. Sometimes they're worse. Just the forearms, as you said, and tops of hands.

Thank you so much for the well wishes and same to you. I don't take NSAIDS at all because I have CKD and I'm not on a blood thinner, so I feel that it must be the Prednisone causing such extreme bruising and tissue thin skin on my arms and hands. 50 years!!! Oh gosh, that's a long time to take Pred. I've had my PMR for about two years, too, but didn't manage to get it diagnosed until I did it myself. Went to doctor after doctor. Luckily for me I was a nurse for 42 years and know how to navigate and understand medical sites and jargon, so I finally found PMR and realized it was what I had. The doctor ran my inflammation markers and they were out the roof, plus I had the typical symptoms: locked up and couldn't even get out of bed in the mornings, couldn't raise my arms above my head, excruciating pain in my arms, shoulders, hips, flu-like symptoms, etc.

Prednisone worked for me within 3 hours of taking the first 10 mg pill. I stayed on that dosage until I got in with a rheumatologist who bumped it up to 15 for 6 weeks then back to 10. The 10 mg completely controlled my pain and other symptoms. I have a love-hate relationship with Prednisone. haha Best wishes to you, too!

One fact that is not brought up that often on this forum is that the side effects of prednisone are much less on lower doses if you can get down there. My rheumatologist has pushed me hard to go lower and I just couldn't for a long time. He says that research shows that at 5 mg and below the risk level is much less.

Mine told me the same thing. In fact, he said if I could taper down to 4 or 5, it wouldn't hurt me to stay on it for years.

yikes. so sorry. i hope that's not something i have to look fwd to. i've never heard of those issues altho my eyes do bug me a lot. my optha thinks it's just dry eyes so i try to use a lot of eye drops esp the gel kind

Thanks. I hope you don't ever have these problems!

@hopeinal. you may also be interested in this related discussion:

- How did you cope with the side effects tapering off prednisone? https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/taper-side-effects/

Thanks!