I have been taking 8.5 mg of predisone at about 5:00 pm. I am just wondering what is the best time to take prednisone to get the best nights sleep. I have been waking up after about 5 hours of sleep & have difficulty getting back to sleep.
Thanks.
Hi Mary. I have recently changed my timings from taking everything at 8AM to splitting it between AM and PM so now take 10mg late evening about 9ish, I find that I now get a fairly good nights sleep normally around to 5.30AM or 6AM whereas like you I was waking at 4ish. May be worth giving it a try rather than 5PM. Good luck. Dave (tavidu)
It very much depends on the person - but why 5pm? That doesn't fit with any concept really.
In PMR the recommended time to take your pred is all as one dose, as early in the morning as possible with some food. Studies have shown the absolutely best time to avoid morning stiffness is to take ordinary white pred tablets at 2am, which allows the peak blood level to occur at about 4am before the cytokines that cause the inflammation are released. If you were using enteric coated pills then you would take them a few hours earlier to achieve a similar effect.
I'd think that 5pm was perhaps about the worst time - your peak blood level will be before midnight and the body reacts to cortisol naturally to prepare for the day ahead so that is why you wake and can't get back to sleep.
Why 5pm? I have no idea. I tend to go to bed early so I guess I just kept stepping the pill time up. When first taking pred the side effects bothered me when taking it the morning so that's why I took it a night. I will go back to am again & hope for a sounder sleep.
Thanks
Thanks Dave,
I will try taking in the morning. If my sleep patterns continue this way I may as well get a night job. :-)
At the very least take it at the last possible moment before going to bed which should give you a few hours before it has any effect and might still leave the unpleasant side effects to be during the night.
Following Eileens earlier advice I take my pred plus other meds at about 2am when I will naturally wake to pee. when I eventually rise at about 7am I find that I have a lot less stiffness and less pain. Works for me.
And that of course is what we are all searching for, 'what works best for the individual'.
As an aside 2 1/2 mg of pred. come in enteric gastro resistant tablets, I have ditched these and when I want 1/2 mg. pred I use a pill cutter on either the 5 to make the 2 1/2 or 1 to make the 1/2mg pred, I am on a reduction program, SLOWLY. SLOWLY.
Cheers.
Janda
Hi all, don't know if this helps, but my dr (and she really is a very good Dr and knows all about PMR) advised me to take the whole dose in one go and in the morning? Christina
I have found I can just take a 5mg & break it into a 2.5 with my thumb nail. Yes, good idea taking pred with my nighttime bathroom run. I am tired of being up with the night critters. Didn't know that the racoons invaded our backyard until this sleeplessness began.
At least you aren't left all alone!
I think I prefer the solitude to the racoons. Onery little critters.
I remember way back in the early 1990's we took our son to Monterey Bay California and stayed at a hotel called Lighthouse Lodge in Pacific Grove. We had just got back to our lodge room after an evening meal and left our son playing with his toy cars outside on a raised flower border. After a couple of minutes my wife went to call him in and there was a racoon standing at the back of the flower border just watching him playing, no more than 3 feet away.
Hi Mary,
Rheumy told me to take my daily dose of Prednisone at one time, once I got down to 15 mg.
I get up at 6 and take my 40 mgs of Pantoprazole (stomach teflonizer). I eat breakfast at 8 and take the whole dose of Prednisone at once on a full stomach. Now alternating 8 mg and 7 mg every other day.
In addition, I take 300 mg Gabapentin (Neurontin) before I go to bed at 10 pm and sleep well, unless I have to go to the bathroom or have some stress that wakes me up, or my Labrador, who sleeps on our bed.
How funny, we have stayed there twice. I love this place. Last time was a few months ago & a mother deer & young ones passed by our room as they sleep in a back area near a fence for protection.
Back to regular programming. 
Does it still look out over the cemetery from the lodges, we used to see deer there all the time. What a beautiful area it was and what with the 17 mile drive just up the road. We loved it and hopefully one day we will go back. My son was once offered a job at the Monterey Bay Aquarium before he had left school.
There is that part & also more lodging across the street that is really, really nice. We had a Groupon & they were not that busy so they upgraded us & we had a full suite. Just us & the deer. Interesting history as to why it is there in the first place. I didn't google until after the first visit. I actually prefer it to Monterey as Monterey has gotten so commercial.
We only decided to go there as my wife loved John Steinbeck novels so went there to see Canary Row (and the obvious Clint Eastwood Hogs Breath Inn at Carmel, now gone I believe). We loved to pop down into Pacific Grove but I guess its all changed now.
I find I have to take it in the early mornings or I can't sleep.