I have been having crying all the time over everything. Like everything makes me cry. It’s awful, and embarrasing. It’s like being a pregnant woman and a cute baby diaper commercial comes on and you start weeping. I was really bad and took myself off the prednizone. Not on purpose at first, but I missed some doses and then just never took it again. From july through august. I’m supposed to take a minimum of 15 mg they had had me on 60 mg a day ugh and I knew my dr was gonna let me have it for not taking my meds. I had went to my boys soccer practise and had no sunblock and boy did I get sick, so I started taking my prednizone again and I have been having weepiness all the time and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. My mom said are you on prednizone again? Does prednizone do this to any of you?
HUGE HUGS to you Heather.
Sun exposure is a real kick in the toosh for most of us.
And yes, prednisone turns me into some kind of morphed overly emotional alter ego. You are so not alone. The only time it never created this, was a weak long slow taper up to 4 mg of Medrol a day, on it a month, then a slow taper down for the next week to come off. It was worth the risk though as my joint inflammation had me to the point I could barely move.
I encourage you to put a call in to your doctor's office, speak with the nurse, explain your challenges, and ask for advice. She can run it by your doctor, and they may find you are one of those people who responds differently and that a much lower dose may do the job for you without the side effects.
Something I have done to help myself and make inflammation stay at bay, was to change my eating habits. Simple changes can bring great results! Something to think about.
I hope you are feeling more like your usual self soon. lease keep us posted? I know your boys need their mom, and you need to be able to function and be as well as possible. more hugs, Perplexed
Prednisone always leaves me very emotional. I try to stay off it as much as I can. My blood pressure and blood sugars were rising and my rheumy said this was because of the prednisone and he tries not to use it because of the long term damage it causes. Sadly this is the only thing that helps some people.
Prednisone is a wild drug. It can do wonders for the problem but the side effects are insane. I personally, get extremely irritable when I take it. I feel like my mind is racing and I can't stop it, it is a horrible feeling. I just want to be left alone all the time. But if affects everyone differently and can really mess with your feelings. In your case, you are becoming overly emotional. I was like that when I was pregnant! So, I understand how that feels too. Like crying when you see a sad commercial. Totally did that. I hope at least knowing that you are not alone helps. It makes me a train wreck. I feel out-of-control of myself which is an awful feeling.
One thing to consider is that going off and on so abruptly without tapering might be worsening the effects on your emotions! That seems pretty likely to me, that a sudden change in hormones throws your mood into chaos. Another thing I always seem to be mentioning is to ask about taking methylprednisolone instead. It is a corticosteroid with the same desirable effects and fewer side effects. It’s less likely to cause weight gain, the moon face phenomenon, and many other side effects, probably including mood. It also is gentler on your liver. I can’t figure out for the life of me why any rheumie still prescribes prednisone when this newer one exists!
I've had the opposite. On large doses of Prednisone greater than 50 mg, I get aggravated easily & very bitchy almost like PMS. It's not good to just stop Prednisone, you need to wean off of it slowly. You know now your sun sensitive so you'll need to be careful, wear sun screen & hat. When I first got diagnosed I'd start feeling better, so I'd stop the medicine, then I'd have a flare up & end up on more Prednisone than I was on when I had stopped. Never stop your meds it's dangerous. Don't know what your Lupus symptoms are but flare up's can cause serious consequences. Be careful of high doses of Prednisone there can be side effects especially if u take them for long periods.
Oh boy, does it. I have been treated for depression for many years. I had gotten to the point where I had been well for many years (no episodes of depression) and was being maintained on one antidepressant a night. Then, I hurt my knee and I got a steroid shot in my knee and was put on oral steroids. (This is all pre MCTD diagnosis.) within two days, I called my psychiatrist. I was sitting in my car outside the car dealers (I had been there getting my car serviced and had cried the whole two hours I was there) I told my doc that I needed to go in the hospital because I couldn’t stop crying and didn’t know what was wrong. He suggested a medication change and to come see him on Monday (it was Saturday morning. I started whining about not wanting to take more medicine and I said something about steroids. That stopped him dead in his tracks. He told me to stop them immediately, call the ortho and tell them I had stopped them, take a sleeping pill and go to sleep. I did all that and woke up Saturday night feeling almost like myself again. By Sunday I was back to normal. So, yeah, steroids can really mess with you. I asked my doc the other day about steroids for my MCTD (my PCP doc) and he started rattling off such a long list of horrible long term side effects that I said never mind. I won’t do that unless I am desperate. I hope you have dried up by now and are feeling better. It really sucks that the things that are supposed to help us can hurt us so badly. Hugs!
Thank you so much guys I really appreciate it more than you will ever know!
Prednisone did the same to me at first. I was crying all the time for dumb things, like commercials. Now I am not as bad, but the emotional roll around is still there. Down to 10 mg a day, 20 on really bad days, I rarely get weepy. Mood swings still happen, but they are usually the ugly ones.
Oh yes it sure does!! It makes you have mood swings too! I remember being on 60mg of Prednisone and I HATED IT!!!! I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin, the anxiety and heart palpitations! Know you are not alone and any crazy symptom you experience is most likely due to the Prednisone! I know it's no fun! Hang in there!!
Firstly let me say I am sorry for the length of this response, I just want to give you a very different (and yet the same) perspective on pred.
I have used pred on an almost daily basis on an enormous number of dogs in a rescue org for a number of years now. It is an AMAZING drug, and I have seen incredible results, but I also know it has to be treated with the greatest of respect, be it by humans or the humans looking after the dogs!
Things I have learnt about pred by using so much on such a vast number of dogs is that it most definitely effects different dogs in my care in different ways. Another thing I am certain of is that it is vital to wean the dogs off the pred to ensure their own immune system switches back on OK and leaves no long term damage to develop.
Dogs/humans, I am learning the hard way there is more relative than I would like to think. I will use pred on the dogs to....
stop itching
as an anti-inflammatory for eyes, luxating patella, post surgery and many other situations
increase hunger (for anorexia)
reduce a fever developed from an auto- inflammatory episode
and so much more.
I have seen the dogs deflate (depression)?? and suffer "roid" rage, BUT the good I have seen from this drug far outweighs the bad, because unlike humans, it is all too easy to put a dog to sleep rather than work on getting the animal back in the best of health you can achieve. We have had huge success with cortisone, which is why I was not concerned at all with being medicated with this myself.
Well, what a shock that first time of pred was for me!!! 4 DAYS!!!!! (Not weeks or months) 20mg a day for 3 days and 10mg a day for one day. If you had given me a bag a sugar, I would have eaten it all!!!! I ate 12 x krispy kremes (I do not normally eat ANY donuts as I think they are the most unhealthy food you can put in your mouth)!! 12x pieces of Costco brownies, and a pavlova. And angry.....OMG I was livid, and I knew it from the inside. Simply didn't trust myself to open my mouth! Then there was the insomnia. 4 days and I was so relieved to flick the pred!!!
That was about 8 weeks ago. Last week when the dermo told me I was to take 40mg a day for a week, 20mg a day for a week and 10mg a day for a week, I braced myself for a most turbulent ride. I started the 40mg 3 days ago and so far, not a side effect in sight, except for the insomnia, which I will tackle tomorrow by taking my medication 3 hours earlier than I have done the past 3 days. Possible solution for problem #1?? I can only give this a go!
I learnt a long time ago, that to set the dogs up for failure was never going to work for them or me. Therefore why would I set myself up for failure?? I simply won't! I will take the time to look at "me" from the outside and note my triggers, and do something about them, hence waking very early tomorrow morning to take the pred to see if tomorrow night I can get to sleep before 4am!
I don't know what your triggers are, but, if you do, be kind to yourself, don't set yourself up to fail. Adjust them accordingly. We can only do what we can do, but sadly it is often ourselves who expect too much of ourselves.
If you have to say no, then say no! Do not feel bad, do not give it a second thought, you have to put yourself first to ensure you can be the best you can with what and who you are.
My phone never stops ringing. It can start at 6am and not finish until 3am, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And these calls are often life and death - be it canine life and death, but that is vitally important to me, that is who I am. I can be contacted when others don't know what to do. However, in the past 5 weeks, that phone has become too demanding for my delicate personal state. I began by turning it to silent, but that didn't stop the urgent text messages coming through. And when these messages come through, my stress levels rise, as you would expect. So I added a month of daily blogs to our website to cover the urgent stuff and to give people in writing what they need to do and ask of their vet when emergency arises. This weekend just gone, I took this a step further, I decided that I would let everything go to message and to then pick my messages up after the work day has finished to return my calls. I also decided to give myself a WHOLE day off per week. Not a phone call and not a human visit. I live on site at the rescue so the dogs never go away, but fact is I would do anything for them, and they don't cause me the stress the humans do.
I hope you get what I have written above. Please do what you need to do to adjust yourself to your meds, you need them. Take a couple of days to yourself to think about what you recognise as your triggers and when they arise. With that info, DO contact your Dr's clinic and converse with the professionals.
For the point of my very long response to you is this...... when we use pred all the time on different people (or in my case dogs), you do see patterns, and you do see that some adjustments must be made. We are not dealing with just one person (or dog) but many. Your unique situation re: crying on pred is certainly unique to you, not so unique when you deal with hundreds of folk (dogs) for many years. So gather your thoughts, have a chat and take back some control. If you can do this with an open mind, you will be astounded at the power you actually do have!!!
P.S. Yep, I too was one of those pregnant mums who would cry throughout nappy commercials.....and I do recall HOW EMBARRASSING this was, but that was 30 yrs ago. I am now far more likely to sit back and take a look at why and how I am setting myself up for that tear jerker.......perhaps it was as simple as sticking my head phones on throughout the add, or changing channels??
I feel for you and I wish you the best of luck. Please take good care xx
Hi, I’ve been battling SLE for over 13 years. Since then lupus & Prednisone have control of my sleep & put weight on my body. At one time I was on 160 mgs of Prednisone, talk about crying, mad, mad, say mean things, demanding, food food, snacks sugar loys of it, gained weight, lost hair and most importantly, I don’t sleep for days then I may get 8 hrs of sleep. At this time I’m taking 40 mgs of Prednisone in morning & 40 @ night. I try taking the 2nd batch in evening.
Prednisone destroys most of side effects that lupus does.
I would never give my dog prednisone, I know what it does to me, and he’s a Jack Russell, and I get hyper on prednisone.
Yes I still get those crying spells, it seems its on our Lupus List of many things we face.
Hang in there