My mother has been on prednisone for almost 30 years, for bronchial asthma. It works great; she’s down to a maintenance dose of 5 mg. a day now, with more when her breathing gets bad.
Problem is, of course, it has side effects. She exercises and takes calcium to offset the bone-mass loss, but the real problem now is that the prednisone makes her skin very thin and delicate, especially on her legs. She gets terrible injuries just from bumping into furniture or even paper grocery bags. Right now she’s laid up with a three-inch cut from the corner of a cardboard box.
So. I’m curious if there is any food or vitamin that increases the tensile strength or elasticity of skin, or if there’s a topical treatment. No New Age hippie tree-huggin’ stuff, but something with actual data behind it? My sister and I are threatening to have her shrink-wrapped if nothing else works . . .
Eve,
Get yourself a second opinion. The choices in treatment for bronchial asthma has grown significantly in the last 30 years, and newer alternatives may be better suited. Side effects of the sort that you are describing can be caused by prolonged steroid (prednisone included) use, but are generally (note caveat) reversible upon titrated removal of the drug from the body.
E Train
(note: I’m not a medical professional, so don’t quote me on this. Come to think of it, don’t trust anyone’s advice on the net. Get to a new doctor.)
Her doctor tried her on one of the newer treatments, and her asthma got worse. She was an excellent doctor who keeps tabs on her, and she does all the right things. Also takes as little prednisone as she can. I’m just trying to find something sort of bubble-wrap to keep her from cutting her legs (she once cut her leg on the corner of a book THROUGH HER BED QUILT).
I mean, of course, she HAS an excellent doctor, not she WAS an excellent doctor. She’d have been a pretty lousy doctor, actually, she gets grossed out too easily.
Eve, my sympathies for your mother - what a bummer of a side effect to live with. (My daughter was within a whisker of being put on permanent prednisone for asthma, as well as intal and ventolin, at the age of 2. Luckily, her paediatrician agreed we’d try a different approach to intervention and now, at the age of 4, (yeeehah) has been off everything for 18 months, unless she gets a cold. But that is another time and another thread).
Look, I don’t subscribe to the “vitamin C cures all ills” school of thought, but one of the few proved uses for Vitamin C is as a cofactor in the cross linking of collagen. Collagen is what gives skin its tensile strength. Excess Vitamin C is excreted, not stored, so high doses are unlikely to do harm, I think. IANAD, but maybe you could talk to her doctor, or a dermatologist, about trying very high Vitamin C doses for a time?
Actually, she’s been taking 500 mg. a day of vitamin C—so last night she calls me and says, “Did you see the news? Now they say more than 75 mg. a day of vitamin C will kill you!”
Inhaled steroids are currently the gold standard in asthma treatment, because they deliver the medicine to the source of the problem, as opposed to steroid pills, which expose more of the body to the drugs. Ideally you want the lowest possible dose to control the condition.
Unfortunately, some people do require long-term steroid treatment, and even in low doses that will, after 20 or 30 years, result in side effects. Yes, calcium loss, cataracts, skin breakdown, weight gain, and all those other potential problems are a bummer. So is choking to death because your lungs are in spasm, or lung damage from chronic inflammation and/or infections. It’s a trade-off.
That said - is there some kind of stocking your mother could wear to protect her legs from casual dings? For instances when she knows she may be at greater risk of damage, back when I played soccer there were some lightweight shin gaurds available. Yes, they’re bulky, but I’m thinking that it sounds like walking through a crowd or through a cluttered area (maybe cleaning out the garage or attic, for instance) could present enough risk that a pair of light shinguards might be reasonable. If the forearms are at risk you can wear children’s shinguards on them. Weight lifters and wheelchair users both use gloves that provide protection to the palm of the hand but leave the fingers free. Good shoes for foot protection. Socks that bunch around the ankles for a little extra padding. That’s about all I can think of offhand. I realize that this is getting into the body armor category, but if your mother truly does require the steroid to maintain her health her skin will continue to be fragile. Even if there is a treatment to restore her skin strength, these measure would give her some protection until you find the treatment and it takes effect.
I’ve got more than asthema as a problem, but it started out with the asthema problems.
Has the doctor tried her on Singular, Serevant, or Pulmacort? These all are preventative measures to avoiding an attack. There’s also a new one just out, that I can’t think of in the preventative catagory.
The pulmunary doctor, put me on about double the preventative medicines that the regular doctors would. Until recently I’ve been able to avoid the Prednesone pills for the most part. I had to be on Prednesone as the other medicines got things under control, and then I was able to stop the Prednesone, except for bad flare ups.
I bleed for days from bumping into a plastered wall, and small wounds can take months to heal. Taking the Prednesone is better than not for me. The skin problem is very hard to deal with. I also am likely to break out in a bumpy, itchy rash after about 15 minutes in sun. I find that wearing a long sleeve shirt, even if it’s thin will help me only get a bruise instead of a bleeding scrap. I don’t wear shorts anymore, and always wear shoes that cover the whole foot. I can live through the cuts and bruises, I could die from asthema. There is nothing to help with the side effects of the Prednesone.