<p>My mom was on a heavy dose of prednisone during her chemotherapy treatments back in the day, and she HATED it. It was like Jekyll and Hyde! She threatened to throw her catheter bag at my dad when we visited her in the hospital once. Subsequently, I’m scarred and refused to take it. Literally, my Dr. wrote me a Rx for it after a bad case of tonsilitis and I started crying in the office…he wrote me something else :)</p>
<p>Mood swings- there are no mood swings (my wife says) you are just a pita.</p>
<p>NRD- my wife would trade her osteoporosis for a moon face while she was on prednisone any day. She just got off of 22 months of Forteo and actually lost bone density. She now has to decide between treating a severe problem with her reflux or not since the medication she will have to try causes loss of bone density.</p>
<p>^^^^Yes, osteoporosis is also one of the horrible possible side effects of long term steroid use.</p>
<p>At first I was kind of enjoying being hungry because usually I don’t have much of an appetite, but this is crazy. My H just went to the grocery store yesterday. Boy is he going to be surprised when he gets home!</p>
<p>Since my longest course of pred was only a month or so, I did not have any lasting side effects (including enver any weight gain. good bone density, etc.), but really do try to minimize the frequency and amount I take, trying alternatives first. It IS a very important tool but needs to be very carefully used. My doc likes to prescribe it but we talk about it & he’s OK with me using it as a very last resort & for as low & short a course as possible.</p>
<p>My Mom got Cushing Syndrome, but she was taking high dose, long term corticosteroid therapy. It was a horrible time for her.</p>
<p>My poor mom. She not only was on steroids. But she also was on neuroleptics which left her with side effects even after the medication was stopped.</p>
<p>My highest dose was 40mg taken for four days, now I am taking half and will go down to half again tomorrow.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, I looked up the definition of high dose vs. low dose prednisone. Low dose was defined as <80 mg per day, high as >80 mg/day. This source obviously didn’t make a distinction between high, low, and moderate.</p>
<p>My daughter had to take 40 mg a day/short term for asthma exacerbation once. I remember being a little nervous about giving that much to a child. She did okay with it, but we were relieved when we could get her off it. I don’t know what dose my Mom was taking which sent her into Cushing’s.</p>