#prednisonesideeffects #Prednisoneandanxiety #prednisoneandmentalhealth
Can prednisone cause anxiety is that a thing i’m dr megan the prednisone pharmacist and i’m here to discuss some science that backs up the assertion that prednisone does cause anxiety but the problem is there’s just not a lot of great evidence right now of how to cope so i want to go through the evidence that it is a thing first and then we’ll talk about some ideas
Or what we can do so this is an email i get basically once a month or once a week essentially substitute any name here female male it’s always it’s always the same story and it’s something like this hi i took prednisone like twice in this case this person was stung by a wasp and took 60 milligrams of prednisone along with using my epipen so just one little wasp
Sting afterwards afterwards i took 20 milligrams of prednisone a few times maybe three times total since then i’ve been dealing with extreme anxiety and daily panic attacks that is like the most common symptom right there i’ve barely been able to go to work and take care of my kids even if i make it through the day it comes roaring back around 6 p.m my doctor gave
Me a few ativan pills also called xanax but they only stop it for a moment any ideas about what i can try next i’m starting to feel pretty desperate to feel like myself again no kidding so i hear that exact same story substitute wasp sting for poison ivy for asthma attack it’s the same thing i only took a few prednisone but i’m having horrible anxiety what do
I do so first of all i want to say you’re not alone all right you’re not making this up this isn’t you’re not suddenly going crazy this is legitimate this is caused by the prednisone prednisone legitimately causes mental changes and so i found a brand new study that was just published this last year and it’s and it tested people on their first time ever taking
Prednisone and it started out at 40 milligrams and this is for a condition called irritable bowel disease ibd and they would start out at 40 milligrams and before they would take the the 40 milligrams they would do a questionnaire to see how their mania symptoms were and how their depression symptoms were and for all intents and purposes i consider this kind of
Me this kind of anxiety to be like an extreme form of um like a complication of mania so they start out with the 40 milligrams and then they drop by five milligrams each week until they’re off and then they would test them for their mood changes as time went by so after their very first exposure to prednisone do you want to guess what percentage of these people
Had moved to changes 49 percent nearly half of the people who took prednisone had no changes and those were only two types of mood changes they were even looking for i’d say there’s a lot more that they could have looked for but they wanted to keep it simple and measurable using standardized tests that are used in many other conditions to diagnose either mania
Or depression and so essentially we discover that half of people who take prednisone are going to have some sort of mood change so what did they see they saw that mania specifically hypomania like a mild farm mania happened more often than anything else and what in the world does that even mean so a way to describe mania is like feeling abnormally good for and
There’s not a reason for it like you didn’t just win the lottery you just turned brightness up and so you have more energy than normal you might have a heightened mood um decreased need for sleep it won’t be extra irritable potentially that’s what hypomania is i had a friend who took it and he was like this homebound old guy who rarely left his living room chair
And after he took prednisone he was like this is great and he was out there power washing their um their trailer their camper trailer and just like this is so awesome i’ve never felt this good in my whole life but here’s the thing it doesn’t last not thing that you’re gonna keep feeling that way because you’re not it’s it doesn’t last it they showed that after
They got 40 milligrams and they dropped they were less likely to be feeling that mania and then once they were all the way off almost nobody felt that way anyway so it’s the important thing to know here is the higher the dose the more likely people are to have mood changes while in prednisone and um and so that means that most people when they get back down and
They’re off of prednisone most people it goes away so that’s really great news for most people is that these mood changes are associated with a drug it’s not you it’s the drug calling it and for most people it goes away when your treatment is done unfortunately there are other people who their treatment is never done and so that’s not very reassuring or who the
Mood changes don’t go away very quickly even after stopping and that’s where it gets really hard and that’s where there’s just not a lot of great scientific research telling us what to do and so i’ve created several articles to help you know how to cope with these situation several videos so just click the link below and it’ll take you to that next video and um
You’ll be able to see what possibilities i suggest for you so just click the link below and you will find out what i recommend and you can feel that you’re not alone you’re not the only person feeling this way prednisone that can cause anxiety and it causes mood changes in about 50 of people who take it so remember it’s not you it’s the drug signing off as dr
Megan your prednisone pharmacist thank you foreign
Transcribed from video
Does Prednisone Cause Anxiety or Panic Attacks? By Dr. Megan – Prednisone PharmacistliveBroadcastDetails{isLiveNowfalsestartTimestamp2022-09-17T140011+0000endTimestamp2022-09-17T140926+0000}
