Reply To: prednisone

Prednisone is a good news bad news drug. My neuro had me on it for about 18 months to treat my CIDP. I was also doing IVIG and Plasmapheresis while on Prednisone. The good news for me was that it helped stop my auto-immune system from doing its CIDP thing. The bad news was it stopped my auto-immune system from protecting me at all. I got shingles, a rare upper sinus infection that required two neurosurgeries to eliminate, it gave me diabetes (which continues even after stopping the drug), cataracts (had to have surgery in both eyes), thin skin that tears if you look at it wrong, and various other colds and infections.

Prednisone side affects seem to affect most of us in some way. Then there are the few lucky ones that don’t get any side affects from it. Prednisone worked to help stop the progression of my CIDP. I think Plasmapheresis seemed to work best for me and I probably had 75 treatments while my CIDP was still active. My neuro and I do not know for sure what treatments worked the best to finally stop the progression of my CIDP; and, still suffering from Prednisone side affects, I would take it again. It’s the lesser of two evils thing for me with CIDP being the greater evil.

JimT