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Beware of prednisone
I was diagnosed with Alopecia (it first began in the Ophiasis pattern then got better.. Then moved into Areata) over two years ago. When it was Ophiasis, my derm injected my scalp, and also prescribed topical steroids. My hair began coming back, and soon as it filled in, I started having gaping patches forming, resulting in my wearing wigs. It became too much to try to hide. My derm saw my frustration and began prednisone. 60 mgs/daily then slowly began lowering the dosage. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I ended up changing my lifestyle and diet. And I'm still not sure how, but thank god, it began working. I haven't had a patch in over a year and a half.
However, I developed Avascular Necrosis in my femur due to the prednisone. Many doctors view prednisone as a "cure-all drug" and prescribe it to many people suffering from autoimmune diseases as well as many other disorders and illnesses. I was never made Aware of the side effects and possible detrimental life-altering effects of he drug. I now have to undergo bone-graft surgery. It is my duty to tell all those currently taking or thinking of taking prednisone to be wary of the effects of this drug. If I had been made aware that it could and would affect my body in the way it did, I would have never ever. EVER . Taken it.
I know how it is to feel losing your hair and femininity and feeling self conscious all of the time, but turning to prednisone.. Ask your doctors before you ever consider taking it. Tell them everything about your lifestyle and ask about EVERY side effect of it before you go in it. Weigh the options. Taking the chance of possibly regaining your hair vs having your BONES DIE, deteriorate, and eventually leading to joint replacement, grafts, having plates put it into your body to prevent joint deterioration and collapse, just simply isn't worth it.
Please everyone, heed my warning. Prednisone may help you, (even though it did nothing for me), but truly consider EVER option and the possible consequences of taking prednisone before you agree to it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Momtoalopecia on
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Wow! I've never heard of that. Prednisone is such a popular medication for so many issues. My son and I both have taken Prednisone injections for alopecia. There is risks with all medications. Scary! Thank you for sharing your experience.
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Permalink Reply by LindaSue on
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I had the same reaction to Prednisone and ended up having to get a total hip replacement on both hips. I now warn everyone to make sure they read the warning and do the research before taking this medication! The Prednisone was not prescribed for my alopecia.
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How long were you on the Prednisone for? And what kind of lifestyle changes did you make?
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Permalink Reply by Maddie on
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I was only on it for a month and a half. I told my derm that I was a smoker and a drinker and (at the time) was using recreational street drugs (cocaine and occasionally Molly/ecstasy). All of which contribute to constricted vascular activity to bone. I ended up cutting out all drugs, restricting my diet to no carbs, fats, caffeine, sugar, fried foods, gluten and juicing. Anti inflammatory diet to the max. Stinging nettle tea????.. Basically everything delicious. I can't recall the name of the book, but there's a young woman who had AU I believe who essentially cured herself using diet. Look up an anti inflammatory diet geared towards autoimmune diseases, esp alopecia. I think her name is Molly something...? Her cookbooks and autobiographical experience is on Amazon I think.
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Permalink Reply by Colere on
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I've had alopecia for years and was recently told I developed lichen planus, a rare inflammatory condition that can lead to permanent hair loss. I just started a steroid dose pack after resisting for a long time. I was told that this condition needs to be treated aggressively with steroids or antibiotics. I'm not happy with either choice and am looking at alternative treatments. I have never been a fan of steroids and now this is one more reason to avoid them!
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Finally, it's out there.
When i was working my way through college as an X-ray tech, in the late 80's and early 90's, physicians were becoming very aware of the side effects of prednisone.
We even had a "prednisone protocol". We would ask the patient if they were on prednisone or any steroid. Especially if the patients came in to see the physician with thigh and hip pain.
It was usually chronic users. We would take the x-ray, and we would literally see a "see-thru" or what we call "glass bones". Hips, especially, femurs, knees, and hands in the much older patients.
Physicians know about this, the moment they prescribe this crap to patients. But these pharmaceutical long term effect problems are like any other pathology in the medical field:
They don't want a cure. Disease even Addiction is big business. So it's a vicious cycle.
The physician prescribes pills.
The pharmaceutical companies and physician get a kick-back.
(Yes, there are kick back laws, but physicians will never report each other if they are violated. Physicians have a brotherhood/fraternity, especially the males. If one rats on the other? They get smeared, ostracized and kicked out.)
The patient experiences side effects from the drug, the physician prescribes more/another drug.
Either way, as long as the patient keeps leaving their health in the hands of MD's and pharmaceutical companies - they'll go broke while the physician/companies get rich.
I just spoke with a young lady who just left the medical field and decided to find a new career. Her speciality was Diabetes.
It took her 3 years to finally realize Diabetes is "Big Business". Each time, she heard of scientists coming up with a natural cure or something close to it? The pharmaceutical companies were all over it. Suppressing evidence, making the scientist look like a "quack", and making sure none of the information made it to the public.
Everyone makes money from pharmaceuticals. Doctor prescribes it, Pharmaceutical companies keep coming up with new drugs to "alleviate the symptoms - but not cure the problem".
They make commercials promoting these drugs. People flock to them. Drugs don't work. Then after a couple of years, complaints and lawsuits.
Then you have Medical Law Corporations, that make money from the pharmaceutical companies to the point they make commercials asking if you've had a relative that died, had surgery, etc. - and THEY make money.
This is how the rich get richer. This is why i finally bailed out of the medical field. And would you believe it? My hair is finally growing back.
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I absolutely love you. It's a vicious corporate bullshit cycle. A young woman who is a regular at the bar I work at (THANKS PREDNISONE... I'll be out of work for at least two months.. Can't work at my bar without two functioning legs...) had full blown AVN of her femoral head due to fertility treatments. Had a hip replacement. She's in her early thirties. And just got prescribed prednisone for something else related to AVN. It's fucking ridiculous (pardon my French). The rich get rich, the sicker get sicker. But we're the ones that end up paying with our health.
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@femmemuscle,@Maddie......thank you for posting!!!!!, finally someone who understands what I have been living for the last two years....I too went on a special diet and cut out gluten, dairy, fried foods,buy organic,etc.and follow Paleo,etc.., just have gone as natural as possible, even my Dr’s. Do Acupuncture, learning Qi Gong, soon to learn Reiki. Use Essential Oils. Cut out most chemical Medications, unless absolutely necessary. The Dermatologist who diagnosed me at the time of my hair loss didn’t give me many options because of the amount of hair loss, the injections were costly and couldn’t cover that much loss. So I was pretty much on my own. Other than the topical steriods like you said. I researched and read every book on Alopecia, Paleo diets, Autoimmune Diseases. It seems that changing my diet helped with my hair growing back for me, it has all grown back in late (2015) and so far has stayed no spots or large hair loss since. Most of my food allergies have disapeared also. Thank the Lord.
How can you not question the Pharmaceutical Drug Companies, watching the commercials on TV and reading all the possible side effects that could come with taking those drugs, or getting your prescription and reading the possible side effects, you have to really wonder, to get relief from the orignal problem to gain all those other problems is it worth it to take the pill?
I too worked in the Medical field as a MA, daily seeing patients that brought in long lists of Chemical Medications they were on, it was frankly frightening. I no longer work in the Medical Clinics.
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Go holistic. Eastern medicine and everything you can to avoid these pharmaceutical bullies
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I agree..
I worked in China, as well as worked in Chinatown here in the USA. (also known as the China Basin in San Francisco)..
I was assigned to work in the Chinese Hospital. Yes. It was made specifically for Asians..why? Because their main goal was to practice holistic medicine. And make their people do their own preventive maintenance.
American medicine does not do this. At this point, it's all about "customer service" "Yelp reviews" and "Customer Service Scores."
Physicians actually have 7 mins. time slots to work with the patient. In some institutions? 10 mins. The patients walk in believing (according to the marketing reps, and PR people),they are the most important person there. And that physicians "take the time" to know their patients.
Nope. 10 mins. maximum is what you get in many of the HMO's. Multiply that by 8 hours. That's 80 patients a day. That just on the 8 hour shift. If they are working 10 hours? 100 patients. And they have to make sure that each patient fills out that customer survey after their visit.
Many of our seminars stated that a physician can screw up a person's life - hell, even kill them accidentally. But they've learned that as long as that patient had a "positive experience" - they will be less likely to sue.
This basically comes down to "give them whatever the hell they want - and move on to the next one."
I also worked in Palo Alto, where they are very afraid that the "rich patients" might take legal action, if they don't have a "positive experience".
We had to go to these C5 classes. Modeled after "Disneyland" and Pikes Fish market in Seattle. Yes. We had to take "laugh classes".. When patients make a joke - we had to learn to do "fake laughs" to make the patient feel as though they had a "positive experience"..
If you didn't sound "realistic" in your laugh? You were sent to the back of the class. Until you sounded more "genuine" with your fake laugh. You sat in the back of the class and had to watch this video with John Cleese about "the importance of laughter"..
If you finally faked a laugh that sounded genuine enough? You received this stupid certificate.
Many male patients in particular, like cracking jokes to make themselves more comfortable, and if the physician is pretty - they like flirting. If we didn't laugh, or stopped their advances - even the nurses would receive a "negative experience" review.
When we walked out into the parking lot? We had to wave at patients (just like in the amusement park), as they passed by in their cars in the parking structure.
We had these "customer service" meetings, where we had to stand up in the middle of the room, take a piece of paper out of a paper bag, and read the joke.
If we were good at the delivery? We were given a bag of Skittles, or a Baby Ruth/Butterfinger bar or even better? Reese's pieces!!!
Though we were tired, over worked. Up all night, most of us, couldn't remember whether we had dinner the night before because they had on call for over 6 - 8 hours a night.
But we damn well better not let the patient know. They physicians didn't catch the brunt of most of this. There is a hierarchy among the brotherhood.
Physicians get to sleep all night? P.A.'s don't.
I am kind of shocked. That when I came forth with this tidbit of information on forums, people came after me like I was a Hilary Clinton voter in a room full of Trump Supporters.
I was threatened. Why? Because American and UK patients stated: "How dare you say these things? My physician LOVES me!"
I was told on the Forum Site.com, and my Social Anxiety/Depression forum by a few nurses (huge followers of doctors) - that they would find my IRL, my name, and have my license revoked.
There were others like myself who tried to tell them, that we were telling the truth? That we were depressed, and some were damn near suicidal not having a place to talk about this a few years ago. People flamed not only myself off their forums. But others who, told their stories - and in my opinion had it far worse than I did.
So, it's not just not about the physician who gets the "perks" from the Pharmaceutical companies, and the surgeons who make money from the "broken bone" referrals, and the Law Offices that make money the lawsuits that the Pharmaceutical Companies that already have a large amount of money set aside for 'pending lawsuits."
It's just big business - all the way around..
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Yes I agree. With my diagnosis, I learned that if you don’t have enough insurance or insurance at all they pretty much do not want to help you. I saw it with my father-in-law dying of lung cancer. When insurance didn’t want to cover it all, home he went. He had pretty great insurance too, at least we thought so. All you wrote is true, cold hard truth. HUGE money in all medical fields, pharmaceutical, health insurance. I get the cold shoulder from regular Dr’s when they learn I am using alternative options to their conventional treatments.
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