Originally Posted by en bloc

Well, my first thought is the sweating...it is likely the Prednisone. That is a side-effect and one that I have experienced myself with oral steroids. You have mentioned sensitivities to other medications, so you'll probably have to add this one to your list. You can confirm the steroids as the cause, by tapering off and see if the sweating stops...I'm betting it will.

It may be problematic for you if you have autonomic dysfunction. I have severe autonomic neuropathy and it's probably a contributing factor as for why I have the profound sweating when taking Prednisone.

As for the autonomic problems: The most common autonomic problems involve BP, heart rate, urination, sweating, GI motility, and even sexual dysfunction. You are not mentioning many of these...are they problems?

Anyway, the testing involved in an autonomic battery is geared toward the above common problems, so may not be very helpful unless you are in fact having problems in these areas. Typically, a 24 BP monitor, holter monitor and tilt table are the first tests to rule our any cardiac involvement with BP and heart rate. There is also a gastric empty study to determine is there is any GI motility issues. There is also urodynamic testing for difficulty initiating urination and emptying the bladder. In regards to sweating and general autonomic nerve testing, the QSART or thermoregulatory sweat test would be recommended.

Again, the testing I've listed are for the most common autonomic dysfunctions, which you don't mention as being problematic. So I'm not sure how helpful they will be. Autonomic testing is fairly specialized and not available in all hospitals.

Autonomic neuropathy IS taken seriously and YES, there are medications to treat various aspects of the dysfunction...but usually BP and heart rate problems. If you know what the underlining cause is, then it's best to treat that....but we all know how difficult that can be to determine the root cause of any of our neuropathy problems. If it is inflammatory based, then the steroids will help...but it's likely the steroids that is causing the increased sweating. So you are between a rock and a hard place.