You can prevent or reverse weight gain from prednisone through lifestyle changes. This includes eating a healthy diet, exercising, and avoiding longer courses of prednisone. Other side effects of prednisone include feeling irritable, trouble sleeping, and stomach ulcers.
The majority of patients who take steroids long-term will experience weight gain, even as early as six months into treatment.
These conditions include Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, lupus and certain cancer types. While Prednisone has many beneficial effects, it also is linked to causing weight gain in those who take the medication. Note that not all patients who take Prednisone experience this side effect.
The best thing you can do to minimize side effects from taking prednisone is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That means eating smart, exercising regularly and getting plenty of sleep. While taking prednisone, you should avoid smoking and drinking alcohol, and add supplements to your diet.
Lean protein can also help promote weigh loss for patients on prednisone. Following a diet where approximately 34% of the calories come protein resulted in people feeling less hungry and promoted weight loss when compared to people on a high-carbohydrate diet.
Steroids affect your metabolism and how your body deposits fat. This can increase your appetite, leading to weight gain, and in particular lead to extra deposits of fat in your abdomen. Self-care tips: Watch your calories and exercise regularly to try to prevent excessive weight gain.
Mild side effects that have been reported with prednisone include: edema (swelling due to excess fluid) muscle weakness. bloating (swelling due to excess fluid or gas, often in the abdomen)
Fluid retention can cause weight gain but as steroids are reduced, fluids will usually reduce as well, along with some of the weight gain. Drinking plenty of water and exercising can help with fluid retention.
When a person stops taking prednisone or other steroids abruptly, they may notice symptoms similar to adrenal insufficiency. These include lethargy, low appetite, weight loss, and a general feeling of being unwell. Prednisone is a corticosteroid that doctors prescribe to treat swelling and inflammation.
Does prednisone have lingering effects? It can. While most side effects of prednisone resolve after you stop taking it, some may be permanent. These include vision problems like cataracts and glaucoma, and problems with bone health, including thinning bones (osteoporosis) and bone death.
This could take weeks or even months, depending on how long you took the medication or how high your dose was.
Corticosteroids such as prednisone affect your metabolism and the way your body deposits fat, so they can ramp up your appetite. If you use these medications at high doses (40 milligrams a day or more) or take the tablets for more than three weeks, you're more likely to experience side effects such as increased hunger.
Fluid retention is one of prednisone's most famous side effects. “'Moon face' is common, which is swelling in the face that can occur after you've been on steroids for a long time,” Dr. Ford notes. “You can also get swelling in the legs and midsection.”
While steroids can help you lose weight quickly, not all of them are designed to help you burn body fat. Most of them in fact are designed to help you build muscle, which while beneficial may not be what you're looking for if your primary goal is to shred fat.
Also, increase your intake of low-fat foods that have high calcium levels. Some of these include corn, sardines, almonds, broccoli, milk, yogurt, cheese, tofu, cooked soybeans, boiled white beans, and salmon.
Moon face may appear within the first two months of steroid therapy, though the risk of developing it depends on dosage and length of treatment.
Increased water retention, another side effect, can cause swelling and further weight gain. All of this can make your cheeks get puffy and fill out your jawline, causing moon face. Corticosteroids are used for several conditions, but moon face is most related to long-term use.
This depends on your health problem or condition. You may only need a short course of prednisolone for up to 1 week. You may need to take it for longer, even for many years or the rest of your life.