What should I expect to happen if I dropped my medrol dosage from 6mg per day to 2mg or even 0mg?
Assuming that you are a long time user, you may/will go into systemic shock and could end up in ER. Your adrenal glands for sure are not ready to take over and replace that big of a drop in steroids. Why are you asking question?
If you did it suddenly rather than as part of a taper and your adrenal function is even slightly dodgy I would expect you to experience at the very least extreme fatigue and possibly even an adrenal crisis if you were to experience any greater than normal stresses - including illness and emotional stress of any sort. If not identified and treated immediately that can be life-threatening.
As Nick says - why are you asking? It has been discussed loads on the forum in the past.
Hi philoso4
I tapered slowly and still experienced withdrawal symptoms. If you drop to lower doses of steroid that quick you will surely get an adverse reaction and bec ome very ill due to your adrenals not being able to function so quickly after being suppressed by the steroids. You will probably have to go back to much higher dose and have to start all over again...do it slowly you will get there!..my very best wishes to you philoso4....
Thanks, all, for your replies and concerns. I wanted to know if anyone had actually tried cold turkey at my level of steroids.
I have been experiencing some difficult symptoms and am at a loss as to the underlying cause. I have recently undergone cataract surgery for both eyes. I was quite anxious about the first one (Nov 16) and took some small doses ( 0.25 or 0,5 mg) of ativan. It worked well relieving the anxiety. But when I began more anxiety feelings I took several 0.5mg tablets over a few days. Then, when I stopped, I really was very very anxious.
But, simultaneously with these experiences I was using durezol (steroid) eye drops to prevent inflammation of eyes. After four full weeks of durezol - sometimes in both eyes at the same time - I learned that I did not read the instructions carefully enough. I was supposed to be holding my finger so as to prevent the durezol from going into the tear ducts and hence introducing more steroids into my bloodstream. I had done closed my tear ducts.
Long story.
So I was concerned that I was getting extra - and different - corticosteroids. I thought that it might be worth trying to just quit medrol and see what happened. Who knows, my PMR may already be gone.
Thanks again.
"I had done closed my tear ducts." Should be "I had not closed my tear duct".
Hi philoso4, even if the PMR has gone into remission, you cannot suddenly stop steroids or drop such a large amount in one go as the others have said or you could be in big trouble. You will need to taper off them.
I am am sorry about the cataracts. You are now on a low enough dose for the steroids to not cause too much of a side effect problem though.
Then the simple and direct answer is that after the time you have been on pred going cold turkey at this level would be very risky.
But you can start to reduce the dose slowly - that will compensate for any extra you had absorbed from the eye-drops. Though I doubt it will have been an awful lot.