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Prednisone wears off in the morning

I am in the middle of a flare and have been on 40mg prednisone for the past four days. I can definitely tell a difference but it seems the effect wears off by the early morning right before I take my next dose. I've been taking it with breakfast, around 630/7. But I feel the symptoms coming back at around 4am and they don't subside until about 830am. Then I'm fine the rest of the day. Has anyone else experienced this? Should I try splitting the dose and taking half later so that its in my system longer? I don't want it to interfere with my sleep. I'm also wondering if maybe it will just get better on its own because I'm always worst in the morning anyway so maybe it's the last thing to get better?
 

Jennifer

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Generally people don't notice improvement from Prednisone until around 3-7 days after taking it (depends on the person, some people feel improvement after their first dose). You should notice more improvement the longer you take it. If your symptoms get worse or don't improve anymore after about 2 weeks then contact your doctor and they may try to increase your dose or try something else.

You should talk to your GI about splitting the dose before trying it. Some people have tried this to reduce side effects but the main thing is to take it at the same time everyday so it's constantly in your system. Remember to taper slowly off of it if you're taking it longer than 7-10 days (some people don't get their desired results and just stop taking it but that can be very dangerous as steroids often require a taper schedule).
 
When I was really bad off I would be up with symptoms all night and end up taking pred at 430-6am to get some sleep. That said my symptoms were always worse in the morning and you haven't been on pred that long so i would continue taking it in the morning for a bit. It does interfere with sleep so I would try to avoid a split dose.
 
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