Coping with Prednisone

Approximately one million Americans per year take high doses of prednisone and related drugs. While these medicines may be necessary to treat serious illnesses, they may also have unpleasant, and even devastating, side effects, including changes in mood, weight, and physical strength, and vulnerability to infection. In 1997, after acclaimed flutist Eugenia Zukerman was prescribed prednisone for a rare lung disease, she teamed up with her sister, Harvard physician Julie Ingelfinger, to write the first book that helps patients deal with the side effects of the prescription. This welcome update to a superb resource--which is still the only book on the subject-- covers the latest knowledge about bone health, the use of steroids for children, and new steroid compounds, along with additional strategies and exercises based on their own experiences and responses from other patients and physicians.

About the Author :
Eugenia Zukerman is an internationally renowned flutist, the arts correspondent for CBS-TV News's "Sunday Morning," and the writer of many articles, two novels, and several screenplay. She lives in New York City. Her sister, Julie R. Ingelfinger, M.D. , is chief of the Division of Pediatric Nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital, directs her own research laboratory, and is an associate professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Julie has written more than 130 articles, authored a book on pediatric hypertension, and is the editor of a textbook that comes out every other year, Current Pediatric Therapy. She lives in Boston.

Review :
"There's now a highly useful, state-of-the-art, and engaging book to guide the many who must use long-term cortisone-related medicines. What a wonderful addition." --Herbert Benson, M.D., author of The Relaxation Respons "Coping with Prednisone is a helpful guide for both patients and professionals. Speaking both as a patient who has taken steroids and as a physician, I only wish this resource had been available earlier." --Susan G. Lazar, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine "This book is a superb resource for patients and professionals: a must-read for anyone taking or prescribing high-dose steroids." --Nina Tolkoff-Rubin, M.D., director of dialysis and renal transplantation, Massachusetts General Hospital