Starting Pred, need advice...

Even though this is an old post I'll add my thoughts. Basically i'm right there with Wolfie40. Energy, 4-6 hours of sleep, eat everything once I start eating I can go for hours. Bad night sweats, sometimes needing to change my bedding in the middle of the night. Here's where my experience gets interesting. After being off prednisone for awhile when I went on it again I had extreme lethargy! Sleeping 12-14 hours a night. Depression, eating everything and night sweats. Tapered off again and you guessed it reversed again lots of energy!! Go figure! Started Remicade 2years ago and got off prednisone. Don't look forward to taking it again but will if I have to because it works for me regardless of the side effects.

Be sure to take calcium, and potassium, prednisone pulls these from your body, I think it pulls magnesium too, but I am not sure. Consider a multivitamin too, if you don't already take one, and folic acid you definately need, since I see you also take asacol.(Look into lialda, I like it a great deal, 2 pills a day vs. 6) Asacol will tell you that it pulls folic acid from your body, just don't ask me what folic acid does for you, I have no idea. ;)

You will want a good acid blocker, zantac, prevacid, or any thing similar, prednisone causes you to be hungry all the time, your stomach will be making alot of acid. Test this out after you are on it week, drive by burger king with the smoke coming from the top of the roof, you will see what I mean. It also does something strange to the protective mucus lining in your stomach, it weakens it somehow. You don't want an ulcer on top of your other g.i. problems. You may be reaching for rolaids or tums, hey look calcium, but you will most likely need something stronger.

Look into an ssri such as celexa, lexapro, or whatever one works for you. I think this is the most important part, but I am a firm believer in mental health, and think if your brain is not working properly, everything else will just crumble.

Prednisone can make you feel wonderful and on top of the world, especially at first, but that will often turn into being depressed, and it sucks. Waves of joy, happiness one day, and depressed, sad, upset the next. Sadly, there is not much middle ground, but the good news is that an ssri can help balance this out. They are all pretty strong at first, allow yourself a few days to adjust, maybe a weekend if you are working during the week. Visit the mental health forum on healingwell, they can help you out here.

Take Care