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Moon-face caused by Prednisone

JTD
Hi,
I have been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I am 25 & am on Prednisone(60mg),salasapyrin(500mg)& Plaquenil(200mg) per day. I have developed a large moon shaped face. I am swollen in the face & neck & hate what it is doing to my face. Will this swelling & fluid go away when I come off the steroids in five weeks? It is causing me to be depressed & family have noticed the change in my face & are worried for my health. I have heard some scary things about these drugs, prednisone in particular. Please is there anything that can stop the Moon face & would I benefit from taking a dieretic too?? P.s I have had an eye twitch every day for the last 3 dys in my left eye, lasting for approx 20secs & about every 10 mins? Could this b another side effect & should I worry about it as it is annoying & starting to get sore?
Thanks
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2001586 tn?1327468550
oh my god ditto
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Avatar universal
Have faith people--as you taper, the side effects, including moon face, will subside. Even though it is painful, and my heart aches for little Lauren, it is just temporary. Just one more challenge for us to overcome. I am now down to 5 mg/day (was at 120 mg/day at the outset), and I already see reduced side effects. I have been on for almost five months, did gain about 5 pounds, but weight also rebounding from transplant. About four days after going to 10 mg/day I saw reduction in chipmunk cheeks. Still not back to my usual face or chin, but certainly making progress. Progress is everything. To Joco619-you don't need to gain weight--it's all about calories in calories out, on or off prednisone it's the same calculation. You'll be fine, you won't be on long enough or at high enough dosages to worry about changes in your appearance. Just be vigilant about drinking enough water and making good choices regarding diet. And borealis87 is right--definitely keep on top of your bone health with calcium, vitamin D3, bone density tests and, if necessary, bisphosphonate therapy.
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Our daughter, Lauren, age 7 1/2 was recently diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis with severe liver cirrhosis. In addition she has vasculitis, although which type is still yet to be determined. She began 40 mg of prednisone over three months ago and has been tapering off the prednisone (currently is on 5 mg). She also takes Imuran.  Her face swelling is quite excessive and the body swelling extreme as well. In addition she has facial hair and light acne.  It is awful and now she fell (a very small fall) and broke two bones in her arm! Does anyone else have a child with autoimmune hepatitis and sever liver damage that can talk with is. A transplant is imminent, however, right now the hardest part is the daily questions from her classmates and friends about how she looks.
Katy
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Avatar universal
i am a 24 year old female. when i was 19 i got eyeritis (arthritis in the eye) in my right eye. it was a stubborn severe case and my eye was extremely swollen and red and i went legally blind in that eye and it all happened very suddenly. There are no eye specialists in my town so I had to fly to another city. When I saw the specialist he prescribed me 65 mg of prednisone with a taper plan of -5mg/week. I also took prednisone eyedrops among other eye drops and eye creams. Withtin days the pain and swelling in my eye subsided and I regained most of sight back. Prednisone saved my eyesight, so it definiteky IS worth taking.
I thought that my fight with eyeritis was over. However, once I finished my taper, the eyeritis flared up again. this kept happening to me. Every time I thought my eyeritis was finally gone for good, it would come back. The longest I seemed to be able to go without another eyeritis attack was a couple months. For about 2 1/2 years I was always stopping and starting my steroids again. Trying different taper plans, different amounts of eye drops, but no matter what, once I was off the steroids or sometimes still on them, but in small doses, it would return, even though I was still taking my eyedrops. I lost track of how many times I've had eyeritis now, but probably at least a dozen times. Some cases seemed to be more stubborn than others. Sometimes i needed to start at 75mg to make it disappear, sometimes only 60. with no eye specialists in my town, it was always a challenge to know the exact amount i should take, but eventually i got to know my eye n i could figure it out for myself how much steroids i needed better than any doctors in my town.
anyways, after 2 1/2 years the eyeritis finally went away for more than a couple months. I thought that this time, it really was the last time. (every time i got it, that's what i thought). well over a year went by with no flare ups, but just recently it came back again and this time I needed to start with 75mg.
for some reason my moon face is especially bad this time. I think every time i have to go back on steroids it gets worse. I have a double chin and my normally perfect skin has broken out in zits. it seems im getting a bit of facial hair. another thing that really bothers me about sterpoids is it makes my hair so thin! also the bloating and gas is very annoying. also i get much more emotional and sensitive. i get upset much easier and cry more. little things seem to frustrate me and its very easy to hurt my feelings. doctors say that i handle my steroids better than a lot of ppl though. I dont have uncontrollable fits of rage or lash out at ppl like some ppl do. (roid rage) also they say my face is not that puffy compared to some ppl, although i notice a big difference. When i went off my steroids for a little over a year, the moonface did go away but not completely. I still had a bit of a double chin which i never had before, and now that im back on steroids again it is much worse. so i think that moonface does go away, but dont count on it entirely and i think its different for every person and it also depends how much steroids you were on and how long you took them for.
as for weight gain, when i first went on steroids i was terrified of the unhealthy side effects especially the internal damage it does, so i made an effort to eat really healthy since the drugs were so hard on my body, i didnt want to toxify my body any more with bad food, and i actually lost about 30 lbs. at first i thought it was the drugs that was making me lose the weight b/c i was not even trying to lose weight, just be healthy. now i realize it was my good eating habits that did it. this time around i did not change my eating habits when i went back on pred and i have gai ned about 15lbs and i'm not even half done my taper. obviously i should be eating healthier and this weight gain would not be happening to me! its hard of course but worth it. cut out junk food and as much starches as possible. if you are on pred, you most likely have some time of inflammatory disease and starch is bad for all inflammatory diseases including arthritis, chron's, asthma, allergies, etc etc. in fact just by changing your eating habits, you may be able to speed up your taper process or drop your dosage because what you eat feeds your disease, and if you're eating unhealthy its probably making your disease worse, so you need more drugs than if you were eating right.
some more things about steroids: when i went off them off them, my hair slowly started to get thicker, but it is still nowhere near as thick as it used to be. in fact i think it used to be almost twice as thick. but dont despair because it does grow back, just really slowly, for me anyways. also when i went off steroids it didnt take long for my skin to clear up, so thats some good news. it probably took a couple weeks for my skin to get back to normal and a couple months for the bloating to go away completely but it did go away. also my mood went back to normal almost immediately after going off pred. i was not so emotional and uptight and i was very cheerful again.
something that wont go away is the cataract that i've developed from prolonged steroid use. once you get a cataract, it will continue to get worse until it requires surgery. however the surgery is apparently quite quick and easy.
I hope this helps some of you. basically, most of your side effects will go away after a couple months of getting off steroids, possibly sooner if you werent on them for long. the only side effect i stll had after a year was a little bit of double chin left and thin hair, but my hair takes a long time to grow. also i had lower bone density than before. MAKE SURE YOU GET A BONE DENSITY TEST IF YOU HAVE BEEN ON STEROIDS OVER A YEAR. luckily my bone density was not so low it was serious but im young and i had really stong bones to begin with, so if you are older or had more fragile bones to begin with you could be at high risk of developing osteoperosis.
this whole steroid experience has been a struggle for me but im so grateful for pred because i would be blind in my right eye if it werent for my steroids. the side effects suck, but it would be WAY worse to be blind and have excruciating pain, swelling, and redness in my eye. thanks to pred my eyesight has come back about 80% and my eye feels fine and looks normal again.
if you are depressed about your side effects just think about how much worse your life would be without your medication! the side effects are a small price to pay for the benefits that you get from pred.
thank you all for your comments on this site, i feel so much better knowing there are many others going through what im going through right now.
good luck with your health everybody and remeber to stay positive, eat well, and be thankful that we live in places where we have access to pred because if we were in 3rd world countries many of us would be dead or at least in lots of pain right now. bless u all!!!!
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Avatar universal
yes i been on cellcept  since nov after deliviring my baby i was put on 60 mg daily of predinizone and 1500 mg of cellcept twice a day and its been working great my lupus has improved fearly quickly im currenlty down to 50mg of pred ndin two weeks going to 40 mg nd down 10 mg until i reach 5mg you should give cellcept a try let me tell you i hate the side effects of pred nd the horrible moon face bt at least i know it will go away
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Avatar universal
I have the same question. I take 5mg and am so upset over the "moon face" weight gain.  I can't get an honest answer but maybe no one knows.
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