Sleep Tips While On Prednisone

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vivaelbirdo

Joined
Mar 13, 2014
Messages
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I've been on Prednisone for a few weeks and fallen into an extremely irritating sleep cycle. I sleep from 11-3 am, and awake until about 8 and then go to sleep again. Like clockwork...3 am roles around, and I wake up, completely unable to go back to sleep.

Anyone have any tips for beating back Prednisone related sleep issues? Benadryl? Melatonin? Drinking until I black out? Have any of these worked for you? Have any of them not? Any other suggestions?
 
I did a rather memorable 39 days on Pred. What i'd suggest for sleep is don't lie there thinking "I really need to be asleep" or "goodness gotta be up for work soon!"

Perhaps get out a book, watch a movie while you are awake until you're ready to go back to sleep again.

I found not fighting it and accepting the status quo really helped me.
 
Melatonin can help but make sure it is ok to take with all meds you are on. I can't take it anymore because of some antidepressants I'm on. Also, according to my doctor, melatonin helps you fall asleep but not stay asleep.

Sometimes just moving to another room helps me. I'll move to the couch and sleep there for awhile if i wake up. Or read. I can't watch tv because it wakes me up too much.
 
When I was on higher doses 40-60 mg the only things that worked for me were other drugs. Melatonin and that over the counter anti-histamine sleep aid. I hated taking more pills but it was the only way I could sleep consistently.
 
I wonder how the prednisone affect on sleep effects your strength going into surgery? I'm looking at surgery within weeks and am only able to get 4 hours per night on average. Started at 40mg and now to 20 but no change in sleep pattern.
 
Sounds like a temporary biphasic sleep schedule. Don't drink until you black out -- that isn't true sleep and isn't beneficial even if you feel it helps you fall asleep.

Melatonin is a good starting ground, and otherwise I was on zopiclone as prescription sleep medication that helped me for awhile.
 
No problem! :p I suffer from insomnia and some other sleep-related issues, so I'm happy my experience can be of some help! Otherwise, when I'm not on mobile I can link some relaxation exercises.

What's your sleep hygiene like? That might affect it too and maybe I can give some tips.
 
Hey thanks again. Normally I have no problem sleeping and achieve rest sleeping from 11pm to 6am. Can almost set your clock by me. If I try that now I just lay there, mind racing. Maybe because of all the CD problems and related decisions I need to make. I even tried meditating, which helps clear my thoughts but does nothing to put me to sleep. So have been staying up until 3 or 4 but still awaken at 6 or 7.
 
I have a sleep journal that I use on nights where I can't sleep. I record why I can't sleep and what's keeping me up and it helps calm my brain down a bit.
 
I think part of my problem is my habit of making myself do something productive whenever I am awake. Even if it's just going down to the dock and go fishing. Cleaned house so many times this past month, I think I'm wearing out the floors.
 
Walk the dog, watch the news. Normally that does it. Before CD started slowing me down over the last 10 years, I ran hard but never had a problem sleeping. I worked what was considered by many to be a high stress job catching a plane on Monday and coming home on Thursday night. But that didn't bother my sleep. Prednisone is my problem. I will be trying that melatonin tomorrow thanks to you.
 
Honestly I did all that I could to tire myself out. I avoided caffeine and sugary products, if I was well enough I got a little exercise in to tire myself out. I also practiced meditation to help relax the mind/body. Simply put, I kept myself super busy one way or another to force mental exhaustion or at least some routine napping. Sometimes these things work, other days you just have to push through to the best of your ability.

Hope you can get some good, quality rest very soon! :hug:


vivaelbirdo said:
I've been on Prednisone for a few weeks and fallen into an extremely irritating sleep cycle. I sleep from 11-3 am, and awake until about 8 and then go to sleep again. Like clockwork...3 am roles around, and I wake up, completely unable to go back to sleep.

Anyone have any tips for beating back Prednisone related sleep issues? Benadryl? Melatonin? Drinking until I black out? Have any of these worked for you? Have any of them not? Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...
 
I made sure to take the prednisone as soon as I got up. When I had issues with sleeping I would use melatonin, benadryl and smoked pot. However I had issues with insomnia before the prednisone.

I had been using amitriptyline for awhile, it is often prescribed for insomnia and there are a fair amount of people on the forum using it as part of their Crohn's treatment. My only issue is that it wouldn't make me fall asleep, however once I fell sleep I was out dead to the world, wouldn't move in my sleep and it was just causing my legs to be so unbelievably stiff.
 
Hey the melatonin worked for me. 2 nights of good rest finally. Makes it easier to endure all the CD issues I'm going thru right now. Too bad prednisone doesn't help... scarriing?
 
Are there similar sleep issues with Entocort/budesonide as compared to prednisone?
 
I presume that the most sleep disruption would be near the peak concentrations?

I just read the iodine.com site (re-publishes the FDA instructions for drugs) that for Uceris (9mg delayed release budesonide) "the time to peak concentration (Tmax) on average was 13.3 ± 5.9 hours", so taking it in the morning, as indicated, seems like a dumb idea! At least by my definition of "morning" (10AM since after a night of tossing and turning, it takes me a while to get going). Maybe I should take it in the middle of the night, when I wake up and can't fall back asleep :)

For Entocort EC 3mg (not a delayed release) the instructions say "Time to peak concentration varies in individual patients between 30 and 600 minutes". So it makes sense to avoid taking that anytime near bedtime.

http://www.iodine.com/label/uceris
http://www.iodine.com/label/entocort-ec
 
Anyone try natural herbs for sleeping like camomile or st. John's wart? I used to use it myself for sleepless nights in university. Wondering if my kid on prednisone would benefit from a more natural sleep aid. She is now staring at the ceiling again counting the bumps in the stucco type ceiling
 
I've tried a few herbal ones but they didn't make much difference. The non-herbal Nytol is working well to fight my pred-insomnia though
 

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