I have a condition that doctors in the US always prescribed prednisone for, but in Taiwan, I’ve been getting prednisolone. These two cortoesteroids are different in that prednisone is converted to prednisolone in the liver. For some reason, I seemed to respond better to prednisone than the other. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find prednisone (often sold as deltasone) in Taipei. Any ideas besides buying on-line?
I’m not sure if they have it,m but have you tried the Shanghai Pharmacy. It’s on Hengyang (Henyang?) St, close to the 228 Park in Taipei. They have medication that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
If the search function is working, I’m pretty sure I’ve posted their address and phone number before.
Brian
Address, phone, directions, etc. for Shanghai Union Dispensary are here:
[forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 326#266326](Prozac
In general, try to take both the brand name and the chemical name written down, and they can look it up to see if it is sold under a different brand name here.
Thanks, guys. I should’ve mentioned that I’m already pretty familiar with Shanghai Pharmacy and that’s the first place I checked. They seemed as surprised as I was that they don’t sell prednisone. And, apparently, importing it isn’t viable.
I get about a thousand spam e-mails a day that hock meds. Maybe I could check one out (although I get the feeling that some out-of-work nuclear scientist in a former Russian state is cooking the stuff up in a bathtub – especially with email subjects like, “CoMrAdE! On_ linE RX . chEAP DollARov!”). Or maybe I’ll contract some work out in one of the myriad meth labs in American Suburbia.
I won’t ask you what your condition is, or question your need for prednisone, but I just hope to remind you that it is a really dangerous drug with serious side effects. OK, if you need it, you need it. Just hope you don’t need to take too much for too long.
What side effects? My father took prednisone for a couple of years as he was dying of cancer. It gave him tremendous relief, but it made his bones so brittle that he had to be very careful just sitting down to avoid a fracture. I also took prednisone briefly for a serious intestinal problem - worked great, but then I noticed my eyesight getting bad. The drug caused glaucoma and I would have gone blind had I not decided to immediately stop. I later learned that about 5% of people who take prednisone get glaucoma. I’m fully recovered now, but I never will take this drug again.
My doctor said that long-term use of prednisone also messes up the skin, causing it to grow thinner and giving the patient a “wasted” appearance.
The above is just for your information. If you really need the drug, then use it, but be careful.
regards,
Robert
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.
- Hunter S. Thompson
Thanks, Robert. Maybe I have what you had: Crohn’s/Colitis. Prednisone is actually one of the safer meds for this – many new, but poorly tested drugs are emerging, but they seem to have worse side effects.
Does anyone else in Taiwan have IBD (Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, ulcerative ileitis)? If so, where do you get treated and what meds are you taking?
Thanks.
[quote=“cyberN8”]Thanks, Robert. Maybe I have what you had: Crohn’s/Colitis. Prednisone is actually one of the safer meds for this – many new, but poorly tested drugs are emerging, but they seem to have worse side effects.
Does anyone else in Taiwan have IBD (Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, ulcerative ileitis)? If so, where do you get treated and what meds are you taking?
Thanks.[/quote]
Yes, I do have Crohn’s disease. Right now, it is in remission, thanks to two surgeries (more on that below).
I’ll include some information below about Crohn’s, for the benefit of anyone else who is afflicted. You can email me directly if you want to discuss it further.
I guess if you were planning to take Prednisone, you must be having very painful attacks where you can’t eat or drink anything, and throw up whatever is inside. In that case, you probably have an intestinal obstruction, known as stenosis. You might also develop fistulas in the damaged tissue, and this can cause a continuous low-grade fever. A google search turns up some links:
ibscrohns.about.com/library/weekly/aa011002a.htm
merck.com/mrkshared/mmanual/ … 31/31b.jsp
Prednisone or Prednisolone - doesn’t matter which one you take. Both are effective, but VERY DANGEROUS - this should only be used as a last resort. If you are having a painful attack, don’t take it. In fact, don’t take anything by mouth. An injection of Buscopan will give you fast relief, but only for about an hour. It must be injected (intramuscular is best, rather than IV). You should learn to inject yourself if possible, and carry the kit with you wherever you go. You shouldn’t eat or drink anything for at least 12 hours. Ideally, go to a clinic or hospital and get put on an IV drip for fluids. If you’re in bad pain, they could give you Demerol (better to take it IM rather than IV - you may faint from an IV when you’re this sick, but many doctors don’t seem to realize this).
Buscopan is only for emergency treatment, when you’re flat on the floor in pain. For long-term everyday treatment, consider taking Sulfasalazine or Mesalamine (5-aminosalicylic acid). Some people get headaches from Sulfasalazine, but Mesalamine is milder. These are anti-inflammatory drugs, and can taken daily for years (by most people) without serious side effects. But they are not nearly as powerful as Prednisone.
It’s far better to avoid attacks than to react to one. You must avoid coffee, tea, cola or other caffeine. Alcohol is bad. Oral laxatives are bad. Oral antibiotics are bad. Hot pepper is bad. Anything that irritates the intestine is bad, and can trigger an attack. Avoid overeating. Avoid high-fiber foods. Go easy on milk. Meat and fish are fine - that’s what you should be eating. Bread and rice are OK. Drink water, herb tea or juice.
There is no cure for Crohn’s disease, but there is surgery to remove the stenosis. I’ve had the surgery twice in a 10-year period - both times in Taiwan, and it was amazingly effective. I said I was in remission, and that’s true. No pain for five years. I can even eat salads again. But I still can’t take oral antibiotics, caffeine or alcohol. My life is pretty normal. So in other words, there is hope - you can recover from this.
Hope this info is of some use to some people here. Apologies to everyone else who isn’t interested.
Email me if you want to discuss further. I can recommend a surgeon in Taiwan if you need one.
On Monday I’m going on a trip and may not be able to access Hinet for awhile. In that case, taibei@yahoo.com.
best regards, and get well,
Robert
Prednisolone:
What dose are we talking about? I used to take pills (50mg) as a “countermeasure” against hay fever attacks and the doc told me it’s harmless, at least when taken over a short period of time (usually 2-3 weeks for me) and in the dose prescribed.
Luckily I don’t have any problems with hay fever here in Taiwan but in Germany it used to hit me hard and that stuff was the only thing that helped, without any noticable side effects.
[quote=“Rascal”]Prednisolone:
What dose are we talking about? I used to take pills (50mg) as a “countermeasure” against hay fever attacks and the doc told me it’s harmless, at least when taken over a short period of time (usually 2-3 weeks for me) and in the dose prescribed.
Luckily I don’t have any problems with hay fever here in Taiwan but in Germany it used to hit me hard and that stuff was the only thing that helped, without any noticable side effects.[/quote]
You took 50mg a day and you’re still alive? I find that a little hard to believe. Prednisone is sold in 5mg tablets, and normal dosage is two to three tablets a day. My father took 15mg a day for two years when he had cancer, and it turned his bones into something resembling styrofoam. I took 10mg a day for three weeks before my eyesight started going bad.
I can believe that Prednisone would help with your allergies. In fact, Prednisone will help with almost anything, for awhile. The true happy pill - until it kills or cripples you. But most people can take it for 2-3 weeks before the side effects start showing up, so if you didn’t suffer any ill effect in that time, I can believe it. But I think you’ve got the dosage wrong.
Do a Google search on: prednisone “side effects” - you’ll get lots of hits. Just a few examples:
ibscrohns.about.com/cs/prescript … nisone.htm
transweb.org/reference/artic … /pred.html
rxlist.com/cgi/generic/pred_ad.htm
Please, nobody take my above comment that Prednisone will “help with almost anything” as a green light to start popping these pills next time you get the sniffles. This would be like taking heroin for a headache.
cheers,
Robert
It is bad luck to be superstitious.
– Andrew W. Mathis
Robert and Rascal:
I’ve had Crohn’s/Colitis for 14 years and have had 5 flare-ups that lasted about 3 months each. I’ve had 5 different gastroenterologists and each of them prescribed at least 25mg of prednisone to fend off the flare-up. The last two flare-ups were worse and warranted 60mg/day.
After 1 - 2 weeks on such a high dose, I always started weening slowly off of prednisone (very important) by about 5mg/week; so, all told, I was chained to prednisone for several months.
I’ve been taking either sulfasalazine or mesalamine (Asacol) since my first flare-up in 1991, but, as Robert has said, this is a mild drug (only used as a “maintenance” anti-imflammatory drug) compared to predni(so)lone.
As for prednisone and prednisolone both being effective, my body may be saying otherwise. Last year, here in Taiwan, was the first time in my life to take prednisolone (I was prescribed prednisone for all my other flare-ups in the US), and prednisolone has caused some very strange acne in, behind and around my ears as well as much more exaggerated and prolonged moon-face (swelling of the face).
Thus, I am curious, if I am getting such different external effects, are the internal effects quite different, too? Maybe prednisolone doesn’t work for my particular body. As I mentioned before, I’ve never needed so many months to recover from a flare-up before; now it’s been 9 months and I’m still a prisoner of my own bathroom and derive no satisfaction from the normal pleasures of food.
Dear CyberN8,
It goes without saying that I am not a doctor, so all I can really tell you is from my own experience, and from what I’ve read (quite a lot). And I’ve talked to other Crohn’s sufferers as well. So I know something, and I’ll share, but if you need medical advice I’m definitely not the final word. With that disclaimer in place…
The course of my illness was quite different from yours. You said you had five flareups that lasted about 3 months each. For me, I had repeated attacks (about once a week) which gradually increased in severity. The attacks consisted of severe cramping pain in the abdomen, and I upchucked everything that was inside me. These attacks would typically last for 12 hours, but I’d need about two days to fully recover. I was later to learn that the severe attacks were caused by “ileus” - complete blockage of the intestine.
These weekly ileus episodes went on for about a year, I lost 10kg, and for the last couple of months I had continuous fever caused by fistulas.
Since Crohn’s disease is a pretty rare illness and the Taiwanese never get it, the local hospitals couldn’t diagnose it. I finally found a surgeon willing to do exploratory surgery, and as soon as he looked he knew what it was. He removed about 1/2 meter of intestine, which included the stenosis and all the damaged tissue. And that was it - I recovered fully, even gained back the weight.
Well, that is to say, fully recovered for nine years. Then the symptoms gradually returned, and after nearly a year of that bullshit, I had the same surgery performed again, and it “cured” me just as miraculously. During this second round, I at least had the advantage of knowing what was wrong with me. Various drugs were tried - prednisone worked great (for a short time) but nearly blinded me. Buscopan injections brought great relief during an attack and had no side effects, but it’s a very short-term fix. I learned that coffee/tea/cola/spices could trigger an attack, ditto for high-fiber foods. Asacol (mesalamine) was only mildly effective, if at all.
Not sure if any of the above info is helpful to you, CyberN8. But I’d go easy on the prednisolone if I were you - I didn’t think anybody could take 60mg a day, guess I was wrong about that. If you’re only suffering from diarrhea, that isn’t so bad. If you’re suffering from pain, that’s another story. And if your condition is getting worse, you may want to undergo a set of barium-swallow x-rays to see if you’ve got a stenosis. And if you’ve got one, you may want to consider getting it surgically removed.
I can’t think of anything else that’s relevant, but email me if you want to discuss it more.
best regards and good luck,
Robert
[quote]You took 50mg a day and you’re still alive? I find that a little hard to believe. Prednisone is sold in 5mg tablets, and normal dosage is two to three tablets a day. My father took 15mg a day for two years when he had cancer, and it turned his bones into something resembling styrofoam. I took 10mg a day for three weeks before my eyesight started going bad.
I can believe that Prednisone would help with your allergies. In fact, Prednisone will help with almost anything, for awhile. The true happy pill - until it kills or cripples you. But most people can take it for 2-3 weeks before the side effects start showing up, so if you didn’t suffer any ill effect in that time, I can believe it. But I think you’ve got the dosage wrong.
[/quote]
The dosage is correct, it were 50mg pills. I tried all the usual stuff against my running nose caused by the hay fever. Actually I was perhaps lucky that it only affected my nose (no swollen eyes etc.) but I was literally taking one paper tissue after the next and even the allergologist said he had never seen anything like that before.
Since it also prevented me from work at the time the doc said there is only one thing to prescribe: Prednisolon. One 50mg pill and within 30 minutes I was indeed happy - the running nose stopped completely and one pill a day helped to keep it that way.