Wakened at 2 dripping with sweat head feels like pins and needles numb.
Is this the result of my first taper on Monday from 20mg to 15 . Spoke with gp yesterday and said to continue with 15mg as had a funny head yesterday but it went after taking paracetamol..am really anxious .wish I had never started predcould it be anxiety or taper anyone else felt like this..
Lassie from Lancashire
My advice is not to reduce from 20-15mg in one go. In your situation you should reduce much slower.
Perspiring is part of reducing prednisone. I have the same problem...
Also could possibly be the paracetamol you have taken too.
I don't know your age, but 'night sweats' are pretty common with woman of a certain age.
My mother in law had night sweats until the age of 90 years. Nothing to do with Prednisone...but she did take a lot of paracetamol.
I'm not an expert, so hang in there lass, and one of our mods will help you.
Keep your pecker up, you're not alone. Help is on the way.
🌹YuliK
Am 75 ,thanks Remember the hot flushes well. But this anxiety is awful feel a bit better now Iam up and dressed don't have many aches or pains just funny head but that is slowly abating after the paracetamol and my usual BP tablets.
Glad you feel a little better. I completely understand how you are feeling.
Someone will be along soon love.
Yulik
Sweats are a funny thing with PMR. I get them as my ‘early warning sign’ that I am on too low a dose. And had them +++ pre diagnosis. So my sweats seem to be PMR related.
Others feel they are a side effect of Prednisolone. If that was the case I would have thought you would have felt worse on 20mg.
Your headache may be withdrawals because of tapering 5mg at a time. Some people can do that, but for many it is too quick a taper from 20 to 15. The perceived wisdom is to only taper by 10% of your present dose. So for many people they can cope with 20mg to 17.5mg ( just over 10%). But a lot cannot. If it is all down to withdrawals these should settle in four days or so.....in which case you are nearly there!
If, however the sweats are your early warning sign, or if pain returns, then your dose is not high enough.
You poor thing , feeling so anxious. Easy for me to say, but things will get better, and as you learn more about this disease everything will come easier.
So stick with the forum. There is so much knowledge and kindness here. The real experts will be along as the Western Hemisphere wakes up.
All the best
It's a bit of everything I am afraid. Rampant PMR, pred head and generalised anxiety. It does get better. If you find paracetamol helps pains you have today then try and stick with it as probably pred withdrawal. But perhaps drop by 1mg next time. You have to give your body a chance to settle and try and stay as calm as possible. Stay away from coffee....if you have regular coffee and tea you may need a morning one to stop caffeine withdrawal headache. No sugar loading (sweets, buns etc,) as few white processed goods as possible.
Get a fan for you bedside or keep a damp towel to put on your forehead. I got a dog cooling mat but you can buy cooling pillow mats now.
I hope things settle down. I am afraid that some people have it rough...but I wanted to ask...have any of the of the PMR symptoms been helped??
YES. PMR ACHES AND SHOULDER PAINS ALL BETTER ITS JUST THE FUNNY HEAD ,CAN COPE WITH THE HOT SWEATS . HAVE THE FANS AND COOLERS, BUT JUST WONDERING IF IT TAKES 4DAYS FOR THE TAPERING TO REACT.
Two things can happen after reducing - if you get a general feeling of malaise the first day on new does that usually indicates steroid withdrawal and paracetamol can help - and it usually last a few days. I suspect that’s what your GP thinks it is.
However if it goes on longer, or comes on after 4 or 5 days that usually means that your inflammation is building up again because you have gone below the level of steroids you need.
If you do feel better, then would agree with GP it’s probably withdrawal symptoms at the moment - but I’m not surprised 20-15mg is too big a reduction - and you may well find it continues for the second reason.
You could try and stick it out and see what happens - but if you still feel the same in another week you’ll need to increase dose.
It could well be the result of being told to reduce by 25% of your current dose. The real experts say never more than 10% of the current dose when pred is being used in a chronic situation. 5mg at a time is fine for GCA patients on high doses or in other illnesses where you are just reducing to stop pred but it really doesn't work well in PMR.
In PMR a go slow is definitely the way to go - for almost everything!
It would almost certainly have been easier on your body if you had reduced to 17.5. A full 5 mg drop can occur in the same time frame, but in two smaller steps. Please don't let your doctor make you drop to 10 in the same big step once you have finally adjusted to 15. In fact I'd say tapering by 1 mg from 15 is a good idea, although you may not have to stay as long as a month on each step, see how you feel. (I tapered by 1 mg per week from my starting dose of 15 mg, but at 10 mg had to slow down, and then it was at least a month on each dose, using a slow taper method.)
taking steroids during the night 
awful cough since starting suflasalazine alongside methotrexate 
What a dope! Mucked up my pred and I feel awful
Awful headaches at around 6.30 pm every evening.
2 weeks on pred and mood swings are awful. 
