Prednisone and workout intensity

Quoted message said:

I've just been put on prednisone to attempt to
clear up some colitis that I've recently had to deal
with(2 weeks at 30 mg/day 2 weeks at 20 mg/day and 2 weeks at 10

mg/day)

Quoted message said:

My question is about my workout intensity when on this stuff..
I know that it will cause muscle loss(wonderful..I've spent
the last 15 years working hard to put on 40+ lbs only to have
it waste away at the ripe old age of 30) but I'm wondering
if moderating the intensity of my workouts would help with this.
Right now I'm doing Christian T's Pendulum workout which consists
of two weeks of fairly high volume and lighter weights with
tempo controled stuff thrown in and then a week of low volume
but heavy weights. Should I just forgot about working out like
this till I'm off this [censored] and just try and get into the gym
and do a "normal" split all the while throttling back on the

intensity?

Quoted message said:

I admit I'd have a hard time taking it easy in gym since I

unfortunately

Quoted message said:

can't do anything half ass but if I knew that lowering my intesity
might help me from wasting away I'd probably be able to. Sorry
for the rambling but I'm a bit frustrated. Thanks in advance.

--
***************************************************************
Peter Attar
NRC Research Associate
Computational Sciences Branch
Air Vehicles Directorate
Air Force Research Laboratory

I thoght prednisone was a steroid.

Prednisone
This is a catabolic steroid that slows the loss of muscle degeneration.
It is the drug most widely used to treat DMD. In some cases walking may
be prolonged for up to two years or more. Not only is muscle loss
halted but its strength and function also improve dramatically. Unlike
anabolic steroids taken by athletes and body builders, catabolic
steroids do not build up tissue but instead break it down.

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I've just been put on prednisone to attempt to
clear up some colitis that I've recently had to deal
with(2 weeks at 30 mg/day 2 weeks at 20 mg/day and 2 weeks at 10
mg/day)
My question is about my workout intensity when on this stuff..
I know that it will cause muscle loss(wonderful..I've spent
the last 15 years working hard to put on 40+ lbs only to have
it waste away at the ripe old age of 30) but I'm wondering
if moderating the intensity of my workouts would help with this.
Right now I'm doing Christian T's Pendulum workout which consists
of two weeks of fairly high volume and lighter weights with
tempo controled stuff thrown in and then a week of low volume
but heavy weights. Should I just forgot about working out like
this till I'm off this [censored] and just try and get into the gym
and do a "normal" split all the while throttling back on the
intensity?
I admit I'd have a hard time taking it easy in gym since I
unfortunately
can't do anything half ass but if I knew that lowering my intesity
might help me from wasting away I'd probably be able to. Sorry
for the rambling but I'm a bit frustrated. Thanks in advance.

Listen to your body. If you're trying to get rid of colitis, training
hard in any form is probably a bad idea, anyway. Just try to maintain,
get healthy, and then worry about making progress again. That they put
you on prednisone says a lot about how sick your doctors think you are -
I'd listen.

-S-
http://www.kbnj.com

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:53:13 +0000 (UTC), <[email hidden]> wrote:

At least you understand the difference between corticosteroids and
anabolic steroids. I don't even bother explaining this anymore when
someone on cotico's remarks to me they're on "steroids. gonna get
huge."

That said, i would probably just treat this period as if i was
dieting/cutting. Continue working out, but drop the volume and
intensity. Wonder if it would be a good idea to cut during this time?

Steve Freides said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Listen to your body. If you're trying to get rid of colitis, training
hard in any form is probably a bad idea, anyway. Just try to maintain,
get healthy, and then worry about making progress again. That they put
you on prednisone says a lot about how sick your doctors think you are -
I'd listen.

Quoted message said:

-S-
http://www.kbnj.com

Thanks Steve. I realize that making any sort of progress is
probably out of the question but I was just hoping to minimize
(or as you say maintain) any muscle loss that I may incur
when on the prednisone. I'm thinking that the dosage I'm
being put on is not that all that high so as long as
maintain my protein intake and get my rest I can attempt
to continue with my current workout intensity as is. As you
say I will listen to my body and see how things go..hopefully
at the end of 6 weeks it will be fine and I can resume
my progress..hopefully.

--
***************************************************************
Peter Attar
NRC Research Associate
Computational Sciences Branch
Air Vehicles Directorate
Air Force Research Laboratory

Slambram said:

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:53:13 +0000 (UTC), <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

At least you understand the difference between corticosteroids and
anabolic steroids. I don't even bother explaining this anymore when
someone on cotico's remarks to me they're on "steroids. gonna get
huge."

Quoted message said:

That said, i would probably just treat this period as if i was
dieting/cutting. Continue working out, but drop the volume and
intensity. Wonder if it would be a good idea to cut during this time?

I might cut the workouts down but I'm not sure cutting would be a good
idea..I'm worried about losing muscle so I think I need to
at least eat enough to maintain..I might try to up my protein a bit too.
Too bad the doc couldn't have prescribed me some anabolic steroids(Deca or Winstrol anyone?) along with my catabolic kind 🙁

--
***************************************************************
Peter Attar
NRC Research Associate
Computational Sciences Branch
Air Vehicles Directorate
Air Force Research Laboratory

<[email hidden]> wrote:>

Quoted message said:

Thanks Steve. I realize that making any sort of progress is
probably out of the question but I was just hoping to minimize
(or as you say maintain) any muscle loss that I may incur
when on the prednisone. I'm thinking that the dosage I'm
being put on is not that all that high so as long as
maintain my protein intake and get my rest I can attempt
to continue with my current workout intensity as is. As you
say I will listen to my body and see how things go..hopefully
at the end of 6 weeks it will be fine and I can resume
my progress..hopefully.

Please be very careful....I have refused a "short course" of prednisone
(also for colitis) two times now when my doc said it would be "fine"
after having read personal stories for years about people who did a
similar "short course" and could not wean off that last 5 mg daily dose
without flaring horribly. Also stories about people going nuts with
mania, night sweats, horrific weight gain and permanent changes in
metabolism (always for the worse), moon face that wouldn't go away even
long after stopping the pred, and osteoporosis despite being on a
"low-dose," "short course."

Personally I would not take the pred unless I was on the verge of
losing my colon...but of course that is just my personal choice, and I
have no idea how severe your case is right now.

I am assuming you have already tried every single 5-ASA drug, and the
cortenemas too, which are much more localized and can usually help you
avoid systemic symptoms. If not, you should start with those
first...Asacol, Colazal, Dipentum....what about Imuran or Budesonide?
Pred is truly a "double edged sword" and most (good) docs won't
prescribe it unless as a last resort.

<[email hidden]> wrote:>

Quoted message said:

I might cut the workouts down but I'm not sure cutting would be a

good

Quoted message said:

idea..I'm worried about losing muscle so I think I need to
at least eat enough to maintain..I might try to up my protein a bit

too.

Quoted message said:

Too bad the doc couldn't have prescribed me some anabolic

steroids(Deca or Winstrol anyone?) along with my catabolic kind 🙁

I don't think you're going to have to worry about this...I forgot to
mention among my horror story list of symptoms, the raging hunger that
prednisone can frequently cause....which never quite gets
satiated....as I said, be very careful. . .

Deb said:

<[email hidden]> wrote:>

Quoted message said:

Please be very careful....I have refused a "short course" of prednisone
(also for colitis) two times now when my doc said it would be "fine"
after having read personal stories for years about people who did a
similar "short course" and could not wean off that last 5 mg daily dose
without flaring horribly. Also stories about people going nuts with
mania, night sweats, horrific weight gain and permanent changes in
metabolism (always for the worse), moon face that wouldn't go away even
long after stopping the pred, and osteoporosis despite being on a
"low-dose," "short course."

Quoted message said:

Personally I would not take the pred unless I was on the verge of
losing my colon...but of course that is just my personal choice, and I
have no idea how severe your case is right now.

Quoted message said:

I am assuming you have already tried every single 5-ASA drug, and the
cortenemas too, which are much more localized and can usually help you
avoid systemic symptoms. If not, you should start with those
first...Asacol, Colazal, Dipentum....what about Imuran or Budesonide?
Pred is truly a "double edged sword" and most (good) docs won't
prescribe it unless as a last resort.

Thanks Deb. The prednisone is accompanied with Rowasa...this
is my first time taking any sort of medicine for this. I've only
really had symptomsf for 2 months and only had problems with
blood in my stool(sorry TMI I know)..no real stomach problems and
only a slight increase in bowel movements. However now that I think about it back when I used to run in college(10 years ago or so) I would also have problems with having "to go" during my run so perhaps I've had this for a while but just not too severe.
The GI doctor prescibed this after my colonoscopy today which revealed erosions
and ulcerations in 3 different areas(rectum,cecum and ascending colon)
so I'm guessing it must be fairly serious even though my symptoms
aren't that bad. Also I'm guessing this is a fairly low dose
of Pred for my size since I'm 6'1" and about 235. I'll see how I react to
it. I can always have him prescrive an anti-e if I'm blowing up like a balloon.

Peter

Quoted message said:

I've just been put on prednisone to attempt to clear up some colitis>

Your name is "Peter", and you have a clitoris? But anyway, clitorisitis
sounds painful, good luck.

<[email hidden]> wrote:>

Quoted message said:

Thanks Deb. The prednisone is accompanied with Rowasa...this
is my first time taking any sort of medicine for this. I've only
really had symptomsf for 2 months and only had problems with
blood in my stool(sorry TMI I know)..no real stomach problems and
only a slight increase in bowel movements. However now that I think

about it back when I used to run in college(10 years ago or so) I would
also have problems with having "to go" during my run so perhaps I've
had this for a while but just not too severe.

Quoted message said:

The GI doctor prescibed this after my colonoscopy today which

revealed erosions

Quoted message said:

and ulcerations in 3 different areas(rectum,cecum and ascending

colon)

Quoted message said:

so I'm guessing it must be fairly serious even though my symptoms
aren't that bad. Also I'm guessing this is a fairly low dose
of Pred for my size since I'm 6'1" and about 235. I'll see how I

react to

Quoted message said:

it. I can always have him prescrive an anti-e if I'm blowing up like

a balloon.

The "having to go" during running may just have been runner's
trots...in some people the jarring of the intestines causes this and it
may not have anything to do with colitis....

But in any case, before you take that first pill, I would call the doc
and I would say "please explain why you jumped straight to a systemic
steroid before trying 5-ASA drugs on their own?" He many not have all
that much experience with colitis and he's going "by the book." If his
explanation is satisfactory, go ahead and take the pred....but since
you are the customer, you owe it to yourself to question EVERYTHING
they tell you. I frequently bring my GI doc articles about new
treatments and such, and he tends to agree with my treatment choices.

You may want to look into the specific carbohydrate diet. It's very
restrictive but it does have benefit for some, and may speed your
recovery from the flare. I used it successfully 5 years ago when I had
a particularly stubborn flare for 6 months (proctitis). The doc
threatened pred and I asked to try the diet for a little while
instead....the flare calmed down and he let me continue on Asacol
instead. Just google it and you'll get plenty of info.

Deb

Deb said:

<[email hidden]> wrote:>

Quoted message said:

Thanks Steve. I realize that making any sort of progress is
probably out of the question but I was just hoping to minimize
(or as you say maintain) any muscle loss that I may incur
when on the prednisone. I'm thinking that the dosage I'm
being put on is not that all that high so as long as
maintain my protein intake and get my rest I can attempt
to continue with my current workout intensity as is. As you
say I will listen to my body and see how things go..hopefully
at the end of 6 weeks it will be fine and I can resume
my progress..hopefully.

Quoted message said:

Please be very careful....I have refused a "short course" of prednisone
(also for colitis) two times now when my doc said it would be "fine"
after having read personal stories for years about people who did a
similar "short course" and could not wean off that last 5 mg daily dose
without flaring horribly. Also stories about people going nuts with
mania, night sweats, horrific weight gain and permanent changes in
metabolism (always for the worse), moon face that wouldn't go away even
long after stopping the pred, and osteoporosis despite being on a
"low-dose," "short course."

Quoted message said:

Personally I would not take the pred unless I was on the verge of
losing my colon...but of course that is just my personal choice, and I
have no idea how severe your case is right now.

Quoted message said:

I am assuming you have already tried every single 5-ASA drug, and the
cortenemas too, which are much more localized and can usually help you
avoid systemic symptoms. If not, you should start with those
first...Asacol, Colazal, Dipentum....what about Imuran or Budesonide?
Pred is truly a "double edged sword" and most (good) docs won't
prescribe it unless as a last resort.

However, some good docs prescribe very aggressive prednisone treatment
as being the method most likely to stop the damaging inflammation
fast. The idea is that the less damaged you are by ulcerative flares
the easier it is going to be to keep the colitis under control. I had
a GI doc I considered very good who believed that those docs who only
go to prednisone as a last resort were damaging their patients and
making control of their colitis nire difficult. She even suspected
that aggressive prednisone therapy combined with early enough
diagnosis might lead to small enough ulcerative damage that it was
fully healable, leading to full permanent remission.

She suspected that I might such a case. Since I've now been nearly a
decade without the slightest suspicion of UC, take nothing for it, eat
no special diet, and often do some of the things sufferers from
ulcerative colitis are supposed to avoid, it looks as though she might
have been right. I consider myself fully cured of ulcerative colitis,
and I attribute it to early diagnosis combined with immediate very
aggressive prednisone treamtment. However, my GI clinic prefers to say
that I'm simply enjoying an unusually long and robust remission :-)

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]