Prednisone Side Effects and Withdrawal Symptoms

Lucky you! We don't all experience the same side effects from drugs, including steroids. The bruising and extremely thin, fragile skin just on forearms and tops of hands is actually pretty common to people on Prednisone. Lots of info about this online. https://nmc-magazine.com/understanding-and-managing-thin-skin-caused-by-steroid-use/

I don't think men have as much of a problem with Prednisone's effect of thinning the skin. Our skin is different --- thick and rough.
https://www.dermalogica.com/blogs/living-skin/is-a-mans-skin-really-different-from-a-womans#:~:text=Yes!,man's%20skin%20texture%20is%20tougher.
My skin did get rather thin on my legs in the area of my shins. Every time I bumped my shins when I was on Prednisone it would cause mega trauma. The skin in that area was thin before Prednisone.

After Prednisone, my shins would hurt when I was in the sun. It was like the sun could burn right through my shins. There was hardly any skin left on my shins.

I'm off Prednisone now. I have more skin on my shins but it looks more like scar tissue to me.

That may be, but I've seen several photos posted by men in other PMR groups that show their forearms and hands as bad or worse than mine. But like I said, we don't all have the same side effects. Sounds like you dodged that bullet although it affected your legs. Sorry. I'm sure that's painful. 🙁

Sorry to read about your experience. Luckily, I'm 2 days from my prednisone dosage going to 0. I got down to around 2-3 mg daily in February before inflammation returned. Then, my rheumatologist prescribed methotrexate 15 mg weekly and a higher prednisone dosage with a more gradual taper, and I've been fine (in terms of inflammation not returning) so far.

For me, the biggest side effects for prednisone so far are constant fatigue / very low energy and difficulty sleeping. Additionally, my near vision has taken a hit, as verified by an eye appointment yesterday, but my far vision is still fine, and there's no sign of cataracts, which I understand are a possible side effect. I've also had higher anxiety and moodiness levels, which is probably not too surprising, given that a good night's sleep has been hard to come by for the last 15 months. As I've tapered closer to 0 prednisone, I've really felt a difference in my anxiety level, particularly as it relates to my job. Disliking my job is not new to me, so it's hard to tell whether my work environment is worse, or if tapering off is making it seem worse. I suppose both can be true. I think my hair is also getting slightly thinner, but methotrexate could be driving that more, the summer has been drier than normal where I live (central Ohio), and I'm 53 and my hair has been thinning for a while anyway.

I hope that the situation with your eyes improves. It sounds very uncomfortable. So far, I've been lucky with my eyes while on prednisone. Just a slight loss in near vision.

I have hairy arms. There isn't much that can get past all the hair on my arms. I can't see the skin on my arms that much.

I sympathize on the fatigue. I've had a lot of that, too. But I turned 72 last week so it's hard to tell how much of my slowing down is Pred and how much is age. I can relate about your job too and not trying to rub it in but I LOVE being retired! It's a perk of old age as far as I'm concerned. lol I'm hoping that when I can taper completely off Prednisone---if I can---my eyes and bruised arms will clear up. My hair was always very thick until the Prednsone and that's very much a possible side effect. The weird thing is mine is growing back in curly. It's never been curly. The texture is different too, much finer. It's crazy I know. Wishing you the very best! It's right at 100 degrees every day where I live, so I can relate to that too.

I've always had ultra fine platinum blonde hair on my arms and legs but lately I've seen a few long, coarse "bear hairs" on my arms. lol Supposedly as we age our ears get longer and our noses larger. I'm old but that part hasn't happened yet. I guess when it does and the bear hairs get worse if I can't live on my Social Security I can run off and join the circus. lol

I have "rogue hairs" as my wife calls them. They grow out of my earlobes and other strange places. Rogue hairs grow fast and get very long. Most of my eyebrows are rogue hairs. Otherwise I don't have much hair on top of my head. I only shave my face every 3-4 days compared to daily when I was younger.
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What is wrong with your eyes? When I hear that someone has red eyes ... my first thought is uveitis.
https://creakyjoints.org/education/what-is-uveitis/
Uveitis is fairly common with various kinds of autoimmune disorders but mostly with inflammatory arthritis and not with PMR. An ophthalmologist should be able to diagnose uveitis. My uveitis mostly occurred in my left eye only. There are many causes and types of uveitis. Autoimmune disorders are just one cause and autoimmune uveitis is just one type.

I have lost count of how many flares of autoimmune uveitis I have had. When it happens my ophthalmologist puts me on 60-100 mg of Prednisone because he says I have an aggressive type of uveitis. My uveitis was painful and caused vision problems so I knew almost instantly when I had a flare of uveitis. My ophthalmologist said I was lucky to feel the symptoms because some people don't feel anything. A red inflamed eye was hard for me to miss but the pain told me to look at my eye.

I had to cover my good eye to know how bad my vision deteriorated in the eye that had uveitis. Usually uveitis only happens in one eye and not both eyes together which seemed strange to me. My ophthalmologist says other types of uveitis that affect both eyes when both eyes have mild but chronic inflammation.

Goodness it sounds like you've had a time with your eyes, too. I've been to 3 ophthamologists. Surely one of them would have recognized uveitis if I had it. My bloody red eyes started after I began taking Prednisone. Since none of the specialists could find anything wrong with them, I've sorta figured that because the Pred has thinned my skin, it has thinned the membranes of my eyes, too. But that's just a theory in the absence of any other explanation.

I know that prednisone causes the thinning skin, but does it also cause “crepy” skin?! I have crepy skin on my forearms along with the thin skin!