How long does prednisone stay in your system after taking for 7 days?

by
How Long Does Prednisone Stay in Your System? DATOS

Prednisone is a man-made medicine given by doctors to treat different illnesses and inflammations, like colitis, cataracts, arthritis, breathing problems, weak bones, hardening of tissues, and cancer. Some people with arthritis and similar conditions may need to take prednisone for a long time, usually a small amount of 5mg every day.

Prescription prednisone helps when the body doesn’t have enough of its own steroids. Without enough steroids, the body can become inflamed and have other symptoms. That’s why people feel better right away after taking it.

Sadly, this can make some people want to take more prednisone than necessary and become addicted to it.

Taking excessive amounts of prednisone (called prednisone toxicity) can be dangerous because it overwhelms the body with an unnatural amount of steroids.

Check Out
How Long Does Adderall Last?

How Long Does Prednisone Stay in Your System, Urine, Blood, Saliva, or Hair?

Prednisone is a type of medicine that changes its form when you take it. After you swallow prednisone, the liver changes it into prednisolone, which is the active part of prednisone.

The body breaks down prednisone and gets rid of it in different ways. Even after a few days of using it, you can still find it in urine, blood, saliva, and hair.

Urinalysis: A study from the National Library of Medicine found that prednisone could be found in urine even after 24 hours of using it. When applied on the skin, prednisone could be detected for about 18 hours.

Blood Detection: Normally, prednisone can be detected in the blood for a few days after stopping its use. But the time it remains in the blood can vary depending on factors like weight and the amount taken.

Saliva Detection: We don’t know exactly how long prednisone stays in saliva. Saliva tests are not commonly used to check for prescription prednisone, but they can be used to check the levels of natural steroids in the body.

Hair Detection: Prednisone can be detected in hair for about 1 to 3 months. However, this time can be longer, like a few more weeks or months, depending on how much prednisone was taken and the person’s weight.

How Long Does Prednisone Stay in Your System? Factors affecting

It’s not easy to say exactly how long it takes for prednisone to leave your body. The time can be different for each person, and it depends on various things that can affect how long prednisone stays in your body.

These things can affect how long prednisone stays in your body:

  • How much prednisone do you take
  • What you eat while taking it
  • How fast your body burns energy at rest
  • How much you weigh
  • Other medications you take (especially ones that replace hormones)

The time it takes for prednisone to leave your body increases as you get older. In children, it stays for about 14 hours. In adults, it stays for about 22 hours.

How Can Prednisone Be Detected on Drug Tests?

To check if someone has taken prednisone, doctors can use tests that check the blood, urine, or hair. Sometimes, a test that checks saliva can also be helpful. These tests can find out how much prednisone was used and what kind of steroid it is.

Check Out
What is the best way to detox your body in 24 hours?

How Can Prednisone Be Detected in Hair?

To find out if someone has used prednisone, doctors can use hair strand tests, similar to blood, saliva, and urine tests. They take a sample of hair from the root and extract the blood from it. This helps them see how much prednisone is in the body. Because the blood stays in the hair for a while and doesn’t go away easily, prednisone can be detected in hair for a longer time.

How Long Does Prednisone Stay in Your System?

The half-life of prednisone is the time it takes for the medicine to decrease by half in the body. For prednisone, the half-life is about 2 to 3 hours. This means that within that time, 50% of the prednisone is broken down.

To figure out how long prednisone stays in the body, we multiply the half-life by 7.

Within 2 to 3 hours, prednisone would take about 14 to 20 hours to leave an adult’s body completely.

In kids, prednisone doesn’t stay in the body for very long. It has a short half-life of about 1 to 2 hours, which means it takes about 7 to 14 hours for prednisone to leave the system.

But remember, this is a general rule, and some things can make prednisone stay in the body longer. In those cases, it might take more than 21 hours for prednisone to completely go away. This can sometimes make the side effects of prednisone worse.

How Long Does It Take for the Effects of Prednisone to Go Away?

When prednisone starts to wear off, you will start to see a decrease in the side effects. This can take around 2 weeks after you stop taking it. If you take prednisone as prescribed for a short time, the side effects are usually not too bad. But if you suddenly stop taking it, you might have withdrawal symptoms.

Prednisone can cause different side effects, including:

  • Gaining weight
  • Having a round face (looking swollen due to fat moving around)
  • Feeling heartburn
  • Changing how active you are
  • Changing your behaviour
  • Having mood swings
  • Feeling dizzy
  • Having headaches

If you experience any of these symptoms, it’s important to reach out to a doctor right away:

  • Problems with your vision
  • Feeling depressed
  • Muscles twitching
  • Changes in blood sugar levels
  • Changes in blood pressure
  • Gaining weight too much
  • Having more side effects in general

If you’re having problems with the side effects of prednisone, it’s important to talk to a healthcare professional. But please only suddenly stop taking it with their guidance. When you stop prednisone abruptly, it can cause dangerous withdrawal symptoms, like a sudden drop in blood pressure, because it affects the adrenal glands. If you are taking other corticosteroids, the risk of these symptoms is even higher.

Read More: How long does prednisone stay in your system after taking for 7 days?