I am 21 years old and was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arth...

HI,

I understand completely what you are going through :)

I was on prednisone for ten years for Ulcerative Colitis :) I have been off the prednisone for 3 years but now I have sore joints because of the prednisone :)

When I went off it I went through absolute hell as well :) I became very aggressive and suffered mood swings, my body and face puffed up again, i got the hot flushes and i became nauseous and faint.

It is not all in your head :)

You are basically going through cortisone withdrawal. Your body has been so used to having the prednisone take over the production of cortisone at such a huge level, that it is now trying to go back to its own cortisone production.

Unfortunately for you, this means that you will experience the side effects you have been describing while your body tries to go back to producing its own cortisone. Basically your adrenal glands are really struggling and you may go through adrenal insufficiency where you will feel nauseous and faint.

The only thing that got me through was to see a naturopath. She gave me fish oils for the sore joints and magnesium and calcium for the sore joints and the nausea and faintness.

It took me two years to get back to normal but i still am suffereing from the side effects. I deal with them through natural means.

You may want to try to deal with it through natural means. Fish oils cut down the inflammation from the arthritis but you have to take a lot. Calcium and magnesium seems to also help it.

If you want to talk to me then e-mail me at paperworkfairy@gmail.com

A big hug and good luck

I don't have rheumatoid arthritis, but have another autoimmune disease and am currently on prednisone as well but I am tapering off of it. At one point, my doctor was going to put me on another medication called methotrexate, which is commonly used for rheumatoid arthritis. You may want to ask your doctor about this drug so you can taper off of the prednisone. I have heard that methotrexate works very well for RA.
Good luck.
Elreb