I had an appointment with a podiatrist concerning an ongoing foot condition. It just so happened I got a hellacious case of the sniffles the day before, something which I haven’t had for quite a while. The podiatrist thought my toe was inflamed and handed me a prescription to a 6-day run of methylprednisolone, a glucosteroid. The cold seems to want to linger, and I note that this medication has warnings about immune suppression. Is the damned stuff interfering with with my cold recovery, even in the little tapered-dose run he gave me? At any rate, I’ll finish it up in a couple of days, but I’m curious.
Doubtful. For immunosuppression, one needs to use high doses of prednisone-type medication for weeks. The dosing you describe sounds more like low to medium dosing, effective for fighting inflammation.
OK. Thanks. Odd way that stuff is handed out - 4 mg pills, in a tapered series over 6 days - 6 pills, 5 pills, …
My cat, Lenny, was on a steroid and it had the same tapering prescription. It seems some steroids require you to be weaned off gradually.
Most steroid tapers are overdone, IMHO. I just tend to use a burst of steroids, then stop them cold turkey after a few days or weeks. I reserve the tapers for folks who need to be on steroids for a month or more.
Chronic use suppresses normal adrenal steroid production, so if the adrenals are shut down, you want to slowly stimulate them back into production by lowering the ambient steroid levels gradually. Otherwise the person has no steroids in their system when going off the pills, their own body can’t make enough to meet basic metabolic needs, and you’ve got one sick puppy.