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...