Is there a risk of becoming addicted to 60mg of prednisolone (prescribed to anti-inflammatory purposes) once a day for a month? - I've already been prescribed this medicine, I'm not asking for a prescription. My doctor hasn't mentioned anything about becoming addicted and I didn't ask when I was in hospital. However, because of the pandemic, I can't go and ask my doctor if there is a risk and I wanted to make sure that I don't suffer from craving steroids after I've come off my prescription.
Hello. Welcome to icliniq. The dosage of prednisolone prescribed to you must be according to your body weight which is usually 1 Mg per kg or in same cases the physician may prescribe an even higher dosage depending on the underlying disease. The body definitely gets used to (addicted) long term steroids like prednisolone and therefore we cannot stop these drugs suddenly and abruptly. So your doctor will slowly taper down the drugs depending upon the disease response like he will bring down the 60 to 50 mg followed by 40 mg and so on. I’d gradually decreased to low doses the body gets used to it. Although steroids have short and long term side effects they are usually helpful for the disease they have been prescribed for as your doctor would have explained it to you before starting them.