no, not a question about lance armstrong.
anyone have data or anecdotes about long-term side effects of prednisone? if a patient’s done a few high-dose cycles (60mg and tapering down) over the course of a year, how long would immune suppression last? and lingering hangovers of immune suppression, or anything else?
thanks,
-mike
Mike- I was on prednisone for some auto-immune issues. I’ll say that immediately upon taking it I felt immensely better.
However. I have since broken my hip (5 weeks post surgery with 7 to go) displaced fracture of femoral neck) and a bone density scan indicated that I was osteopenic. I was only on a max of 20mg of pred for 4 months and was actually tapering off when the fracture occured. It was a moderately hard fall from the mountain bike where my hip took all the force.
Additionally, the prednisone reduces healing rates and increases the risk of avascular necrosis (regardless of trauma or not).
No doctors (and I work with some good ones) feel that the predisone should have weakened the bones so quickly and as cyclists we need to keep in mind that cycling is a non-weight bearing activity. The more miles you run and the more weights you lift, the better for bone density.
That’s just my anecdotal thought. I’ll be back on the bike ASAP, but maybe with a bit more calcium and weight lifting in my diet.
My brother has had several stints of high doses of pred (60+mg) for autoimmune issues, and didn’t have any huge lingering effects once he tapered off. It was like watching someone slowly lift a weight off of his shoulders.
His biggest problem taking that high of a dose was that his resting heart rate went from about 40 up to 90, and anything beyond the most moderate exercise was just torture. For a kid who almost broke 15 min 5k a year out of high school, this was devastating. Fortunately, he is a tough, tough kid and he seems to be doing fine now. After the second round of pred they did a bone marrow biopsy, and the guy doing it mentioned that he had to lean on the drill a little bit to get through the bone. As long as you have some background in load bearing exercise, you shouldn’t have too many issues with bone density, although a calcium supplement and lots of green leafy veggies never hurts.