I am currently on 5.5 mg - for last 4 days. The last two mornings I have been rather shaky and faint.
I have had coffee both morning - but this morning it started as I was making my coffee.
Yesterday it was really frightening - I kept wanting to pass out. I had a shock because a friend was involved in a car accident - she was ok. I sort of thought that it could have been due to the histamine intolerance - because the other symptoms of numb head, eyesight off etc were similar to my normal histamine related reactions. Stress increases histamine. I would not normally react like this to a stress incident - but I suppose it could be that the increase in histamine from stress was not being degraded.
I was just wondering if it could be an adrenal thing. I think that my adrenals have been shot for years anyway - even prior to PMR and Pred.
I take my Pred at about 12 midday - because that is when I eat my 1st and fairly substantial meal. Shall I change this. I just dont want to be eating something late at night - I am trying to heal a damge gut.
Thanks as always.
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Slosh
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You are probably on just too a low dose, maybe go back to 6mg; take it when you wake up with a simple biscuit & stay in bed a while, do a bit of reading etc before you get up & see how you go. Also try Decaf incase the Caffine is making you twitchy....
You are now below the Physiological Dose that we all need & if your adrenals are sluggish anyway you need to take steps to improve how you feel in a morning.
Could well be not enough cortisol. I found the effects of this could happen either after a sudden event like tripping or bad news or any emotional peak, or after a sustained bit of stress. Morning is when you should have a peak of cortisol. It may be that you need to start taking your Pred in the morning as endocrinologists suggest when trying to get cortisol production back on line. Make sure you are getting enough salt as poor adrenal function leads to lack of sodium so b/p can drop.
Just a thought. Are your blood sugars ok. I went through a phase of steroid induced diabetes. To my delight, lowering Pred, cutting out sugars and carbs has lowered it completely. I did need to eat often and little - sensible stuff. The others are probably right though, your Adrenals just cannot raise to the stress of occasions. Horrible feeling, it just has no where to go. Report this symptom.
I used to feel a bit faint and groggy in the first few days after a taper. I have always taken my prep in the morning so just retired back to bed with a glass of water and a book and generally felt fine after an hour or so, best wishes
"I would not normally react like this to a stress incident "
Mmm - but your adrenal function hasn't had a chance to get back to normal (takes a ong time even once you stop pred altogether) and the spike of cortisol to help you cope wasn't there.
Early morning would be better but if it doesn't work for you it doesn't work for you ... But you don't really need a full meal unless you have gastric problems. A small amount of yoghurt or a glass of milk is enough for many.
I have histamine intolerance - could not always tell what I was reacting to. Sometimes I would react to exactly the same foods that I had eaten prviously and the only thing that had changed was that I had started the gastric resistant pred. May not have been it at all.
Or you were waiting longer for Pred to reach your system perhaps. This is all pretty hard to monitor. I sometimes feel ok and at other times experience waves of flu-like feelings for no discernible reason. Painkillers do help. I experience nothing identifiably PMR or GCA. Stumped! Tocilizumab? Adrenaline?
So weird. My house mate and I have this little joke as we often get weird symptoms at the same time (she is very healthy) and takes no meds at all - we say mmmmm wonder if they are switching in 5G ....
I can't drink tea or coffee with my histamine issues. The odd 'proper' ground coffee is OK but never the instant stuff. BTW I've found a probiotic I can tolerate, Optibac Everyday immunity, I think it's the one PMRPro found. what with that and giving up milk and pork I'm expecting a miraculous end to all my problems any day now. LOL
I have always been a fainter, but I had similar symptoms when I got down to around 5mg of pred. In fact I did faint a couple of times, luckily in crowded places like the grocers and the swimming pool. I blamed it on the adrenal glands. I mentioned it to my GP, but I think he was too busy looking at his computer screen and he just grunted.
Googled symptoms of adrenal insufficiency and contacted my rheumatologist but then events overtook and I ended up in A&E anyway, which was lucky because I managed to see an endocrinologist while I was there which saved a long wait for an appointment.
When I was on a higher dose of prednisone, I have tapered recently to 2.5, uncoated, I played around with different times and splitting dose. Now for a long time I take it by 7a.m. This works best for me. In early morning I am sometimes a little achy and shaky, but this wears off as time goes by. I do think our bodies take a while to get used to new dosage. As of now, I am planning to have an aortic valve replacement in December, so am working on being calm and not stressing.
It COULD be blood sugar issues also. My sister and I both suffer occasional bouts of exactly those symptoms early upon rising (feeling dizzy, faint, feel as if ready to pass out, shaky). One way we learned it was low blood sugar was by drinking a glass of orange juice and it immediately got better (well, that plus we already know we have hypoglycemia). You might want to check that too at some point with your gp.
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