Oral prednisone

[jasstorm]

I started having a flare up about 2 weeks before xmas. It started with my whole right side becoming numb (new symptom). Bc it was the holidays my neuro put me on a 3 week taper of oral prednisone instead of IVSM. my numbness has diminished but eyes still hurt and just not feeling well. Has anyone had experiences with oral steroids helping relapse or is IVSM the only solution. Thanks

[tspaulding]

[QUOTE=jasstorm;1439516]I started having a flare up about 2 weeks before xmas.

I prefer oral prednisone, that has helped w/ ON and blurry vision.

Once I took IVSM and got worse on 2nd day, I was crawling up the stairs, that is my case, and not most people who take this.

Good luck w/ the steroids

[MSer102]

Has anyone had experiences with oral steroids helping relapse or is IVSM the only solution. Thanks

I've been on IVSM many times and now I take high dose oral prednisone instead because my veins are shot and I can't have IV's anymore.

Prednisone and Solu-medrol are equally effective IF the prednisone is prescribed at high enough a dose to be equivalent to IVSM. From what I've been reading most doctors don't prescribe nearly enough prednisone to be equivalent to IVSM and to effectively treat a flare of MS.

IF your doctor prescribed enough prednisone to effectively treat your flare, then it did it's job. It isn't intended to make you feel better. In fact, oral prednisone is just the same as IVSM in that it frequently makes a person feel much worse until it all processes out of the body.

And steroids aren't intended to make a person feel "all better" afterward. The steroids only shorten the length of the flare. They don't do anything to affect the ultimate outcome of the flare. So there can still be lingering effects from the flare that the steroids won't help. So you can still have some pain and not feel well no matter if you were treated with IVSM, oral prednisone, another steroid or Acthar. As with all flares, treated or untreated, you get as much recovery as you are going to get. That's just the way it is with MS.

[Alicious]

I've only had one flare that I was willing to take steroids for (numbness on half of my body/calf spasticity/no fine motor control in left hand; I was in bad shape), and the oral steroids did the job. They were hard as hell on my stomach, though. It was the flare that got me diagnosed and I wasn't willing to go the IV route; I was too stubborn then (for no good reason).

MSer102 is right, provided the dosing is done correctly, there is no benefit to one or the other in terms of actual results in the end. I can't speak to how my dose compares to IVSM, but FWIW I started on 80mg prednisone/day.

I hope you are on the mend soon.