Prednisolone and low mood and anxiety.

[Whist]

I am now free of pmr after 3 yrs treatment.I have been off prednisolone for 1 year but since discontinuing it I have suffered low mood and anxiety Has anyone else experienced this?

[david451943]

Hi Whist, Unfortunate for you for a little while but now very fortunate you have managed to get off the Steroids. I suffered with P.M.R. about three years ago, i started to reduce the Steroids down from the first initial dose of 38 mg per day down gradually to around 12 mg per day in the first 18 months, things was okay but my Dr looking after me decided to retire, my blood tests gradually phased out and by this time i was down to 8 mg per day and unable to reduce any further without awful pain, i was referred to Q.E. at Kings Lynn ( Great Staff) for a Synacthen test which proved that my main Adrenal Glands which controls the main organs in the body had shut down and gone to sleep due to over dosage of Steroids, i am now under the Dept of Endocrinology and have managed to reduce a little further down to 4mg per day but they reckon it could take a while to re waken them, there at 80 year old i would be most great ful to get back to some kind of normality and let those Effector T cells, the little soldiers get back to work, coming back to your problem have a word with your Rheumo and ask them if a 2 weekly self injected dose of Adalimumab would help you, i take it every fortnight and it works wonders, give it a try you never know, Take care for now Dave Hallas.

[Whist in reply to david451943]

Thank you for yr reply.I now have no pain from PMR it took me a long time to get off prednisolone reducing by half a mgm monthly.It has left me with mental health problems which are slowly improving I have been off pred for 2 years.These problems surfaced after 3months off pred in the form of panic attacks and now present themselves in the form of low moods. I have had family problems just existing ones and I seem to have lost the ability to cope with them. As my nature is usually resilient and as an ex nurse I am usually a good coper.So I must attribute it to prednisolone.I consulted my local pharmacist who admitted that pred can make you euphoric. So I consider myself a drug addict.The literature says that prednisolone can make you physiologically dependent on them another world for addiction.This was not explained to me by my consultant when I was diagnosed as I believe patients should be told this .

Apologies for delay in replyon.