My Neuro won't prescribe Prednisone for numbness. He says it doesn't help that sx. I've taken it before (had some left over 20mg pills) but it didn't seem to help the numbness. I usually just wait for it to run its course. Both my feet and lower legs are numb right now but it seems to be easing up ever so slowly. My right hand and arm has been numb for close to 2 years now....Neuro says it's permanent nerve damage. I've gotten used to it, though, and aside from a little aching when I've overdone it I don't pay much attention to it. I can still walk and get around....however gimpy I may look......so I'm happy!

well....crap!

This better not end up being permanent. I've never been depressed that much about the MS, until now. I NEED my hands...both of them! I crochet and knit, that's what keeps me sane, and while I can still crochet and knit with this numbness, it's not as enjoyable as it usually is.

Maybe it's not doing anything for the numbness, but maybe the pred is helping whatever spot it is that's got the inflammation and the inflammation will clear up soon and maybe the numbness will go away then??

It's not just hand and foot numbness, but the entire left side of my body below the neck. (would that be transverse myelitis?) I did feel some numbness in the left side of my face last week, but that seems to have gone away. It also seems like in the left hand, it's not just numbness there, I think there's a problem of some sort with my ability to move the pinky finger and the ring finger to some extent.

I'm pretty sure this is from the lesion that I have on C4.

I had a really really sore neck for a month or so, the pain started to get better a couple of weeks ago, but that's about when the numbness started. I wonder if there's a connection between the neck pain I had and the numbness now?

I have spinal lesions, too. Yours may not be permanent but it's always taken my bouts with numbness at least a couple of months to clear up. At least with my legs it has. My first experience with numbness was before I was dx and I thought I had a pinched nerve. I was numb from the waist down.....totally. Even my behind was numb! It went away (slowly) on it's own after several months. That was my first major "flare". My next one was a couple of years later and it was double vision. Again, it lasted several months and cleared up on it's own. That, however, I had to address more thoroughly than I did the numbness. Strange thing....each time it began in Sept/Oct and lasted through December.

I've had to relearn how to use my right hand. It was difficult at first and I couldn't even blow dry my hair using that hand (I can now, though). Good thing that came out of that episode is that now I can use either right or left to do just about anything!

I hope you feel better soon.

I can use a hair dryer with the numb hand, but I cant use the numb hand to move my hair around while the other hand is blowing hot air onto my head and that hand...makes the hand more numb. (yay for uhthoff's phenomenon...argh!)

I can knit and crochet with the numb hand...the yarn just feels horrible to my hand tho. Yarn feels yummy to the non-numb hand tho...just feels craptacular to the left. That's what I'm really hating. Not enjoying my hobbies as much with this.

That doesn't sound enjoyable. Sorry to hear this Erin. I hope this subsides for you.

From someone who's lived with chronic pain now for many years as a result of this crummy disease, here's one of these wishing you well

It's still freaking numb.

I'm wondering if he's even giving me a high dose.

The pills are 10mg pills, and there's only 70 of them.

I'm taking 6 for three days, 5 for three days, 4 for three days, 3 for three days, 2 for three days, and 1 for three days.

and I think I might have just figured out the math for that...and it's not correct...maybe (I suck at math)

If I took 6 for the first 3 days, that was 18 pills, then it's 15, 12, 9, 6, and 3.

18 + 15 + 12 + 9 + 6 + 3 = 63

There's 7 pills not accounted for.

What the heck?? (calling pharmacist...)

Edited to add:

ARGGGGGH!~~

His directions may have been wrong. The pharmacist said the directions were confusing to her. They say

Take as directed.
Beginning at 6 tablets
three times daily

Friday, when I picked it up, it was nearly 10pm, so I called the after hours number for the neuro. Got a different neuro. He said the directions were confusing too, and did the math and said for me to take it the way I was taking it.

Maybe this is why it's not working?

argh1!!! SIX DAYS! I've been taking it for SIX FREAKING DAYS and apparently taking it wrong!

dangit!

Altho, the last time I had oral steroids, which was 2yrs ago and prescribed by a different doctor, his directions were very similar to how I've been taking it this time.

Now I wonder if he really did want me taking 18 pills in one day. But, that's a lot of pills to choke down.

Does any of that make sense?

I guess I have to call him in the morning. Maybe he'll adjust the Rx, or add some more to it or something... Next time he needs to write it out better.

180mg a day would be too much I think. It sounds like a tapering dose from 60mg down would be about right.
i took 75 for 3 days then tapered down when I had my (not) Bells palsy.
The thing with pred is that it only reduces a swelling. If your numbness is from nerve damage then pred would not work would it? If its caused by inflammation, say from a spinal lesion/swell, then maybe it would help. my neuro has often said that pred would be of no use for numbness.
Or it's quite probable that I'm talking absolute pants and got it all wrong.
take it easy anyway.