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.

I'm thinking that he didnt give me the pred for the numbness. But for the pain and what might have been the impending paralysis of my hand/arm/entire left side.

I've noticed something that I was overlooking because I've been so centered on the numbness. My hand no longer feels like someone parked an aircraft carrier on top of it. And, I can move my fingers better than I could last week. (still cant feel the yarn when I'm crocheting or knitting. Keep dropping my working strand because it slips out from between my fingers and I dont notice it)

Last week my hand hurt so bad, that I was crying myself to sleep. It felt like it was being crushed right on the joints where the pinky, ring and middle finger meet the hand. Now it doesnt hurt there any more. Fingers are still a bit stiff, but they also feel like polish sausages to me. I can now bend them without much problem.

I noticed tonight that I can do the alphabet in sign language with that hand better than I could before the pain and numbness started.. (been using the sign alphabet as a way to keep my hands agile for crocheting for years..)

So, maybe the prednisone is working, I was just not paying attention to the right symptom. The numbness is annoying and the most constant, so I've been centering on that symptom, and not realizing that my hand doesnt hurt like it did last week.

So, yay! I guess the prednisone IS working...just not on all the symptoms that I want it to work on. I guess I'll take being able to move my fingers over being able to feel them. I just wish that yarn didnt feel so craptacular to my skin right now.

I do think I have something new starting tho...not sure if the steroids are causing it. My left leg is really really tired feeling. Enough that I'm noticing it when standing for more than a few minutes.

I'm going to go attempt to sleep. The steroids are giving me some pretty nasty insomnia tonight. That's starting to get old.

no advice, just hugs

Sometimes Prednezone just stops working after you've had it several times. IVSM and pred stopped working for me..

It may help with your pain and other inflamations, though.....Here's hoping..

I'm going to assume that it's working. My hand is still numb, but this morning, it's been a lot easier to move my fingers.

I think I was just so centered on the numbness...

Erin - how's the numbness? Any relief?

~Keri

well, it doesnt feel like someone is crushing it anymore. It's a little easier to type now too, but I'm still pretty numb from just below the the shoulder to about my knee..(all just on the left side. Right side doesnt seem to be affected at all)

I wasnt super bummed out with the numbness (other than my hand and arm) until I went out with my boyfriend the other night. We'll just say that the numbness is depressing at times. Feels like I'm wearing a scuba suit sometimes. Or a giant full body mitten.

Tonight, I'm feeling a lot of spasticity all over my body...mostly in the left arm and hand and down in my right leg...and some in the left leg, and my low back is killing me. I'm waiting till just before I go to bed (which will be in a little bit hopefully) before I take any baclofen for it.

I did a two week oral steroid taper (well, it was a few days over two weeks) and the crushing sensation went away after a few days...now I just get a weird tight feeling in the knuckles of my pinkie, ring and middle fingers. (the knuckles where the fingers meet the hand)

It's annoying, but I think it's a little better than it had been. Doesnt hurt like it did, sometimes it feels like the numbness is letting up (that goes away fast) but I'm getting tired of feeling like I'm wearing a mitten, and the typing errors that I've been making are making me grumpy.

Oh, and not being able to crochet or knit as much as I want to is ticking me off. At least I figured out how to knit and purl using my right hand to throw the yarn around the needle, rather than just using my left hand to wrap the yarn around the needle. So at least it's helped my knitting skills a little bit. I could not do that before things went all fubar. That's the one good thing about it. Similar thing happened when I had my first episode of optic neuritis. I learned to knit the day before, and the knitting was a good enough distraction that it kept my head from exploding in frustration while waiting for my eye to get back to almost normal.