How does prednisone work?

It decreases your immune system's response, thus decreasing inflammation and pain.

So what you all are saying is that it makes it harder for my body to make white blood cells and whatever other type of work the immune system does? So i guess prednisone users are more succeptable to diseases?

I read somewhere on healingwell about taking it in the evening i think? its seems better with me b/c I wake up feeling great.

OK did a little research on the net. "The exact mechanism of how prednisone works is not known."
Prednisone is a steroid. Steroids help control metabolism, inflamation, immune functioin, salt and water balance, development of sexual characteristics and your ability to withstand stress of illness and injury.
Prednisone is a manmade replica of cortisone, which is produced by our bodies. Our adrenal glands produce the equivalent to 5mg of prednisone per day. Cortisone normally helps regulate the body's salt and water balance and reduces inflamation.
The website i found most of this info from is gihealth.com. Theres a lot more interesting stuff about prednisone that I didn't know so yall might want to check it out.

I guess if you consider aspirin has been shown to cause Reyes syndrome in children, you might say it's like prednisone. I think of it more like heroin. It makes you feel better quickly, but then you're hooked. You have to keep taking more and more to get less and less effect, and all the while it's gradually destroying your body.

Hi,

Let me go a few levels deeper (possibly deeper than you'd like, but if so just ignore me!)

As stated earlier in this forum, we're not exactly sure how corticosteroids work to suppress the human system. Humans are actually a member of the "steroid-resistant" species, meaning the effects we feel are actually substantially less than say, a mouse. In many other species, the introduction of large amounts of steroids leads to massive die off of immune cells, which can be dangerous (and therapeutic if done carefully). In humans, this does not appear to be the case.

Here is what we have observed and believe accounts for the effectiveness of steroids:
1) The activity of basophils and monocytes, two types of white blood cells, are severely depressed while on steroids. While these two subsets of whiteblood cells are few in number, they play an important role in coordinating the immune response. In their suppressed state, the immune system cannot effectively mount a response to antigens. You probably feel this immediately when you take steroids.
2) It has been shown that activated white blood cells are killed by high levels of cortisol (called lysis). You probably feel this immediately when you take steroids as well.
3) After several weeks (~2-4), antibody production is severely depressed (~28% of normal) as corticosteroids turn blood-making marrow into fatty marrow (or at the very least influence the bone marrow in a way that inhibits plasma cell production, and therefore antibody production). This is the "long-term" effect of steroids that you do not feel immediately.

Anyway, this is actually kind of a high-level description from my world :) But I hope it works. Bear in mind these are just the "effects" we've observed from steroids. Whether or not they actually "cause" you to feel better is difficult to say.

Styx