Prednisone Side Effects and Withdrawal Symptoms

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!

Hi! I am one of those with the purple bruises and skin tears. One (small) tear on my hand came very close to an exposed vein! I was very worried that the wound wouldn't heal because the flap of skin fell off and I couldn't get the edges of the wound to meet. But using non-stick pads and paper tape to hold it in place did the trick. It took about 10 days to heal. Amazingly, there is no scar.

I have not had the red rimmed eyes, but have had several burst blood vessels - definitely demon-like, scary looking. My rheumatologist didn't seem concerned.

I am tapering and am at 9mg/day. My skin isn't bruising quite as easily and I have had fewer eye issues - although I noticed a newly red eye just yesterday. It isn't as bad as previous issues, so maybe the lower dose is making me less susceptible?

I have read here that skin does make some recovery over time. Crossing my fingers! Wishing you the best!

I was told there were three possibilities when I was diagnosed with reactive arthritis. The first possibility was that it could happen once and never recur. The second possibility was it could recur and then have a recurring pattern of flares. The last possibility was that reactive arthritis could become a chronic condition.

I thought I had the "one and done variety" of reactive arthritis because it didn't recur until 5 years later. After the second time, the flares of reactive arthritis would recur once or twice every year. I treated my lower back pain myself. However, my ophthalmologist said I needed to be seen if ever I suspected a uveitis flare. He made it very clear that I should never start Prednisone for uveitis before he looked at my eye first. My ophthalmologist said an eye infection can cause uveitis and the treatment would not be Prednisone in that case. Only the autoimmune type of uveitis was treated with Prednisone.

I never saw a rheumatologist during this 20 year period of recurring flares of uveitis and reactive arthritis. When I went more than a year without a flare. I thought maybe I was "over it" and I would never need Prednisone again. My prednisone supply was mostly expired so I threw it all away. I figured my supply would be replenished if I ever had another flare of uveitis.

I never had another flare of uveitis but I started to have bilateral shoulder pain with stiffness that seemed to spread everywhere. My wife made me go to her primary care doctor. I just wanted some Prednisone but I didn't have my own primary care doctor. My wife's primary care doctor looked at me like I was an idiot and she said I needed a rheumatologist.

For about a year, the rheumatologists I saw thought my reactive arthritis had become chronic. They "restricted" me from taking Prednisone because they said reactive arthritis wasn't treated with long term Prednisone. I managed to find a "sympathetic" primary care doctor who tried to help me. He prescribed limited amounts of Prednisone to me. When I told my rheumatologist how quickly the "shoulder pain" disappeared when I took Prednisone they said shoulder pain wasn't a characteristic of reactive arthritis. When I told them I never had shoulder pain during my 20 years with reactive arthritis --- PMR was diagnosed. When I told my primary care doctor about the PMR diagnosis, he said that was what he thought it was all along. However, he was listening to the rheumatologists who were telling him it wasn't PMR.

I didn't know what PMR was at the time. I just kept insisting I needed some Prednisone. The longer I needed Prednisone, I was convinced it was PMR because of all the shoulder pain. I was 52 years old at the time so I was old enough to have PMR. I think there was reactive arthritis mixed in with PMR and that made it impossible to get off Prednisone for 12 years.

Hi Janetorcas!
Just a small tip for all of you thin skinners— don’t use any tape ( yes, even paper tape!) on your skin. Use the self-adherent wrap that stretches and sticks to itself (trade names co-flex or co-ban). They sell it everywhere and target even sells it in other colors besides white or beige! I used it on my patients who had thin skin or who were allergic to tape after drawing their blood…

Me too! I have a love/hate relationship with prednisone! Yes, it really is a miracle drug in a lot of ways, considering how many times it’s worked for acute asthma episodes and also for arthritis and PMR inflammation!
And then there’s those long term side effects—your thinning skin and the fragile bones of osteoporosis…..

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.

Yes, retirement is very nice! Hard to work when you are so tired much of the time. I was also in the medical field for 45 years!
First as a medical assistant for 5 years. Then I took a year off when I had my son. Then for another 20 years in hospitals working as a certified phlebotomy technician( and taking a short break to have my beautiful daughter!) Also during this time I trained as a Laboratory Assistant working in Microbiology (my favorite!), Pathology ,chemistry and Hematology.. then another 20 years working for Kaiser-Permanente clinic as a Lab Assistant/Phlebotomy Technician. I loved my work, but I truly don’t miss getting up early in the morning! 🙂

Wow you've had a wonderful career! I didn't work much when my three kids were growing up, just sporadically. But I made up for it later. lol

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. 🙁