Losing Weight On Prednisone-How Much Is Okay?

[arandomchic]

When Molly was ill this spring (meningioencephalitis - a neurologial issue brought on due to an autoimmunie reaction to her vaccinations most likely), she was on a very high dose of prednisone (I can't remember if if was 40mg or 60 mg daily) for 4-6 weeks initially. She lost about 15 pounds and have fairly acute muscle wasting. She was skin and bones. The inflammation around her spinal cord never reduced enough on prednisone to lower the dose, so we opted to do chemo to help it along.

 

Once the prednisone dose was reduced to an anti-flammatory level (versus a autoimmune level), she started to rebuild the muscle very very slowly. For timeline reference, she got sick in early May, had chemo in june, and started to rebuild muscle in July. You may want to check with your vet on rehabilitation. It really helped Molly build muscle a little more quickly (as well as improve her neurological function).

[o_rooly]

Sparky went on Prednisone as a trial for lumbosacral stenosis, to see whether the epidural steroids were likely to alleviate his symptoms. He was on it for a week, and within days it was clear he was losing weight dramatically. Ended up increasing both the quantity and frequency of feeds to try and keep condition on him. By the end of the week he was eating 3 x his usual, but weighed 6 kilos lighter (and that was with him having recovered some of the weight already). It was a scary-fast process, and the vet was shocked... but then Sparky's had major issues with both Rimadyl and Apo-morphine.

 

I'd be concerned at staying on the steroids that long. If there is an area of inflammation, surely a depot steroid shot would be more effective, and less likely to cause systemic effects?

I'm about to do the same trial for Aston's LS, before trying a depo-medrol injection. Very worried about potential wasting, but the pred dose will be tapered off quickly. Hoping that he doesn't have a major reaction, since it's VERY hard to get Aston to gain weight once he loses it..