{cross-posted - will try to deal with later - after the parent's Doctor's appointment}
Goodbobby, you have misunderstood me.
The NHS page I linked
http://www.cks.nhs.uk/insect_bites_...rt_course_of_oral_prednisolone_adults#-260440 shows an "NHS cost" of no more than £1.84 per course of these pills.
From what I have seen myself, I know this to be a distinctly potent but unfortunately high-risk medication.
It is simply not in the same league as anything you are likely to have in the medicine cabinet.
And its something you should be particularly cautious about using repeatedly within months - so, how often might you be stung?
But it is 'cheap as chips'.
Please read the "Patient Information Leaflet" in your pack - its meant to be read by all patients - and
you wouldn't want to only be reading it after you were 'in trouble' with a sting.
Please read it and consider all the warnings.
Particularly if you are paying for the treatment, I would urge you to make enquiries about safer alternatives - specifically including a desensitisation course.
Its not "some silly reason" to quote from the official authorisation notes for the drug.
Repeat link
http://www.medicines.org.uk/EMC/medicine/19308/SPC/Deltacortril+Gastro-resistant+Tablets/
At section 4.4 you will find -
Patients/ and or carers should be warned that potentially severe psychiatric adverse reactions may occur with systemic steroids (see section 4.8). Symptoms typically emerge within a few days or weeks of starting the treatment. Risks may be higher with high doses/ systemic exposure (see also section 4.5 pharmacokinetic interactions that can increase the risk of side effects), although dose levels do not allow prediction of the onset, type, severity or duration of reactions.
That says you
can get "severe psychiatric adverse reactions" within a few days of use, and that, contrary to Erichalfbee's previous assertion, the chance of these side-effects does not depend on the dosage level.
And it says that you should have been warned about them.
Were you, as a patient, given those warnings that you should have been given?
I'm
*not* forcing
*my* opinions on anyone.
I'm simply trying to help you by urging you to read and consider the warnings legally required to be supplied with your drug.
And to read them ASAP - certainly
before you are stung again.
But even that is entirely up to you, and whether you can be bothered to take any interest in the potential side-effects of the drug that you have been given.
I do know and appreciate that this drug can indeed be a lifesaver.
And that it has a very nasty range of potential side-effects.
Such that I'm surprised it would be used,
unless really needed as a lifesaver.
Here this drug seems to be recommended only "If generalized urticaria occurs, but the person is otherwise well"
http://www.cks.nhs.uk/insect_bites_..._course_of_oral_prednisolone_adults#255093006
A bit of a sledgehammer for a skin rash? Does a rash need "a lifesaver"?
A desensitisation course simply does not seem to have a similar "downside risk", and would not require powerful drugs after each sting.
