Tapering off prednisone

[Laurie]

8 year old springer spaniel with AIHA

[Laurie]

It’s been two months since my 8 year old springer Audrey was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia! Yay a milestone!! After starting at 80mg prednisone a day (and 100 mg cyclosporine) we have tapered down to 60 mg (also on Qing Ying Tang “cool the blood” and deer Velvet). Her PVC count was 39 last week. The vet wants to taper down to 40 mg if her blood is holding tommorow. Does anyone have experience with tapering prednisone and/or experience with such high doses? When trying to research this I just read the max for a human is 80 mg! Goodness! Audrey is bug eyed and has a totally distended stomach drinking gallons of water a day, stumbles and falls on occasion, and is very very slow – but she still wants to play ball (from 3 feet away) and can run after it 15 feet – so I am very very happy to see that!!

[Brigitte]

Hello Laurie,
welcome to the forum! It looks like Audrey is right on track making those red blood cells and showing will to play, live and have fun! It sounds like she is on the right medications and the tapering suggested sounds good. Here is the link to the AIHA terms and the suggested tapering:
https://www.secondchanceaihadogs.com/AIHA_Terms/prednisone-dose-reduction/
80 mg is certainly a high dose for a Springer. Is Audry on any kind of stomach protection. We usually recommend sucralfate. At the 60 mg dose she is at you are still setting her up for ulcers. But maybe your vet has already put her on that.I am sure that once Audry is on a lower prednisone dose, she will feel much better all around.
Best wishes,
Brigitte

[Vally]

Hi Laurie, and yes welcome.

Your Audrey has done brilliantly to make those red bloods and 39 is fabulous.

What does she weigh? Yes, check the link that Brigitte has posted. That does sound like a like of prednisone to me too. Usual dosage is 1 mg per pound. Yes definately stomach protection would be very important. Is she on anything other than pred and cyclosporine?

Dogs take heaps more prednisone by weight than people do. Lady at work who has polymyositis, was taking 20mg of prednisone a day, which is what Bingo was on when he was diagnosed. By the way, she has 2 English Springers. Bingo weighed about 8.5 kg at that time (about 18.8 lbs) so don’t worry about comparing it to human doses. But saying that 80mg sounds like a lot.

All of us here are paranoid. When it comes to tapering, we usually recommend no more than 25-33% reduction at a time. By doing 80mg down to 60mg you’re doing a 25% reduction, which is a nice conservative reduction. That’s much safer than reducing faster as there’s less chance of a relapse.

If you like, post a picture of Audrey. Use the Upload Your Photo on the right. The photo doesn’t show immediately as someone will need to approve it – it stops spammers getting in that way.

My very best.
Vally & Bingo

[admin]

Hi Laurie & Audrey

Glad you found us & that things are going well on the PCV front. I agree with Brigitte & Vally that she is suffering from pred side effects & that dose is a bit high -some vets use a high dose to start with, but it should be reduced after the initial crisis & a decent PCV. I like Brigitte’s idea of going down to 60mg for a few weeks, see how she goes & then you can reduce further if all is well.

Love Sheena, Worzel & Ollie xxxxx

[Laurie]

Thank you much for the information! My vet was not at her practice Saturday and won’t be back until tommorrow (Tuesday) so I made the decision to reduce her preds from 60 to 40 – starting last night. 20 twice. Vet had mentioned she was planning on doing this if the blood held – which it did it was at 40 – but I am so nervous doing this on my own!! Wondering if I should give her another 5 just to be more conservative. 33% is 19.8… Yes she is on omneprazzle for her stomach.. She fell flat on all fours yesterday to I am really getting nervous about such high dosage but thanks for the info that they can tolerate much higher than humans! I’ll post a pic of my sweetie … thanks all! (oh ps she weighs 50 pounds – she’s a big girl!)

[Laurie]

Oops I wrote too soon – the vet just called and recommended I stay at 60 for another week (I had misunderstood her previously – she meant to drop after two weeks) I only reduced it last night so she had a dip of 50 yesterday and now today we will be back at 60… This illness is a real bear isn’t it! (We had gone from 80 to 70 for a few weeks and then to 60…)

[Vally]

Laurie your girl is a big girl. That dose isn’t so terrifying then, and the dip in prednisone is a practice run :) Your vet sounds good not to race the reduction.

Look forward to seeing this girl of yours.

Vally & Bingo (who likes to check out the girls)
xxx