my mother tried switching me to prednisone when i was around 8 yrs old. I didn’t do well at all. My face swelled up like a moon after a while, my blood pressure was out of control, etc... I was later put on dex instead 1/2 tablet am and 1 tablet pm with florinef.  So 0.75mg daily + 0.1mg florinef daily.  I felt so much better.  I’ve recently tried to switch to hydro (as it didn’t exist as a treatment when i was a child) at 29 yrs old (as you will see from my posts) and as of last night i realized that it doesn’t agree with me.  I switched back to decadron last night, and felt good immediately.  All I can tell you is that everyone works differently.  The way your son is metabolizing the prednisone through the liver might not be ideal.  I know many people speak against taking dex because it’s so strong etc...but i’ve been feeling great on it for over 18yrs.  Plus it’s so strong (56hr half life) that if you’re irresponsible with your pills during your teen years (like i was sometimes) it has less of putting you in trouble.

If he’s reached full height already, try him on decadron 0.75mg per day.  Should work out to 1/2 (0.5mg) tablet am + 1 (0.5mg) tablet pm + (0.1mg) florinef tablet. This will most likely need to be tweaked later in life as it was for me.  Around 26 yrs old i had horrible heart palpitations and nervousness.  My potassium was really low and my DHEA-S and Thyroid T3 was really low...yet my 17-OH progesterone and testosterone were normal.  My endo explained this was a sign of being oversteroided. I’ve been down to 0.625mg of decadron daily since then. That’s 1/4 tablet am and 1 tablet pm.

Hope this gives you and your family some options

c