Hi everyone,
This is my second post today.
For some reason I am having an uncomfortable stimulant/anxiety reaction each morning when I take my dose. (I am alternating 6 and 7 mg every other day.) It starts about 45 minutes after I swallow it, and lasts an hour or two.
Yesterday I took seven mg and I split the dose, taking 5 mg and then 2 mg just two hours later.
This significantly helped with the anxiety/stimulation feeling.
Is there any downside to this?
Thanks!
Probably not - if it works then try it. Many people split the dose to make the antiinflammatory effect last for a full 24 hours. Only 2 hours later would be unusual but in principal it is the same.
Is the effect better on 6mg days and did you get this on higher doses?
Yes I feel less of this negative stimulation/anxiety effect with I take 6 than when I take 7.
As for whether I experienced it at higher doses, the answer is no and yes. And this is the most confusing part for me. When I was first put on 40 mg in January, I felt great! It took away all my pain and I felt fine.
But then in July I tapered down to 5 (too fast) and had bad AI symptoms. Within a month weeks I was back up to 20 mg, and it was AT THAT POINT, that the pred started making me crazy.
Ever since then, I have had a terrible reaction to the pred. The only calm, sane moments I would feel are when I wake up before I took the pred. Once the pred kicked in about an hour or so later, I would severe emotional and cognitive problems. It was a horrifying. I even had suicidal thoughts for the first time in my life.
So I broke all the advice and tapered fairly quickly down to where I am now, and I feel so much better now. The only issue is I still get an hour or two of racing heart and mild anxiety immediately after taking the pred (worse on 7 than 6), but then I feel fine the rest of the day (except stressful moments, like an argument with my sister, can make me feel really bad.)
This is all very confusing to me. In the beginning, even very high doses did not do this to me. But now, after one experience going down to 6 and then back up to 20, the pred gives me terrible psychological symptoms. It was unbearable anywhere above 10 mg. I am deathly afraid of every having to go that high again.
Is there a possibility that you were already very stressed or in a sensitive psychological state at the time and the increased Pred fanned the flames? It sounds like you are quite sensitive to Pred and perhaps have become more so in time and the increase to 20mg was a big change having gone up from quite low.
I could feel the Pred ‘coming in’ all the way down to well under 5mg with sweat on the brow, flushing and increased heart rate. Nothing like on high doses but still apparent.
With these conditions all we can do is concentrate on the day we are living.
Yes that's definitely true. I was in a very stressful situation at the time.
Also, it makes me feel better knowing you and others also feel the pred coming in. I really don't like the feeling but at least I know there's nothing wrong with me now (other than maybe being highly sensitive to it.)
Thank you for your help, as usual. 😀
Pred psychosis can appear in susceptible individuals at any time. It can be immediate or take anything up to several months. The product literature even suggests that it may happen after stopping pred in some individuals and it specifically mentions people who have a history of anxiety and depression. I am supposing that the people who have a history of anxiety are the people who would be considered to be susceptible.
It happened to me after 2 weeks on 15 mg. I was OK below about 7 mg, and have been on 5mg for about 3 months or so now, but I have increased to 6mg in advance of my holiday and straight away the nightmares and terrors are back. Atm, I'm hoping it will settle down, as I am miraculously totally pain free again.
Question about splitting prednisone dose
Splitting the dose! 
Splitting Pred dose
Splitting dose
Splitting pred dose
