Prednisalone tiredness

[Shandon1]

I presently take 3mg prednisalone about 9am. But get very tired around 2pm. I am thinking of splitting the dose to 2mg in morning and 1mg in the afternoon. Is this a good idea?

[HeronNS]

I haven't had any experience with dose splitting, but I wonder if by splitting what is already a really low dose you might be lowering the pred too much to continue to control any residual PMR pain? The other thing is you'll be wanting your adrenal glands to start working more and more efficiently, and might the spreading out of the dose dampen that a bit? I don't really know, but I'm sure someone out there will have some better answers for you. I recommend if you can to give in to this and have a nap. Or are you at work in the afternoon?

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Hi Dubliner,

Anything's worth a try! I think by the time we get down to low doses our bodies have got into a routine with Pred, so a change of times may work, so long as you take the correct dosage within any 24hrs why not mix things up? If things don't work, you can always go back to the "normal" times!

Could also be your adrenal glands a bit slow on the uptake. I got very tired when I was between 5 -3mg, so I started taking my Pred at 3am - bit of a pain having to put alarm on, but I don't seem to feel so tired now (down to 1.5). Incidentally I tried this when I was around 9-10mg and I felt awful, so you just don't know!

As we very often say - case of trial and error! Still makes life interesting!

Good luck in whatever you try.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Tiredness at this stage is probably more that your body and adrenal glands in particular are still working hard to catch up. I'd try resting a bit more for the moment and slowing the reduction down even further. I'm not sure splitting would help that aspect - but without trying you can't know.