Headaches

I’m assuming you’ve ruled out GCA as severe headache has been described here as one of the symptoms? Also I eat and take Pred immediately afterwards, not waiting for half an hour so intrigued as to why you are waiting..sorry you’re having such a painful time   

Yes I shall mention GCA. 

Thanks a million. 

You are all so kind. 🌷

Good morning from the U.S. I just wanted to add that I also take thyroid medicine as mine was totally removed. I have tried my prior PMR dosage of taking it in the morning first thing on an empty stomach waiting an hour for food or drink. I've also tried taking it before bed. Now I've just settled on taking it whenever I wake up early in the morning to go to the bathroom that's pretty consistent. As for the prednisone I am on 15 mg now reduced to 13 this last 1 mg was very difficult and I'm going to stay here for however long it takes as my thyroid since January 30th two May 2nd has swollen from very hypo to very hyper, neither which is normal for me. Prednisone and thyroid medicine are like oil and water. Anyway I've always taken my prednisone anywhere from wake up time and tried it at the 4:30 spot on an empty stomach. I have to take thyroid medicine regular medicine and prednisone all in the morning there's just not enough hours to get it all in. I've never had any issues with my stomach at all so if you haven't tried it it might be worth considering. Each person is obviously different. Best of luck to you. Hope your head feels better and you get an answer. Janet

Another of these people who think drugs works instantly! It takes a good hour or two for steroids to be absorbed and get to the bloodstream to be able to work. If your pain is starting at 4am you need to take the pred at 2am (as found in a study). 

Taking your tablets witha glass of milk or a yoghurt is quite enough to cushion your stomach against the pred. What a performance if you have to eat and wait...

However, another option would be to split the dose: take about 2/3 in the morning when you get up and the rest later in the day, late afternoon or early evening is one option and won't interfere with the thyroid meds. The later dose will extend the duration of the antiinflammatory effect which lasts from 12 to 36 hours depends on the person. When it lasts 24 hours you get less pain in the mornings but when it is much shorter the pain is more noticeable.

Whilst you do need to bear GCA in mind - one of the listed side effects of pred is headache! 

Hi rds, I know we are all different, I split my dosage; adjust the amounts as I reduce. The larger dose in morning after breakfast and smaller dose after a snack at bedtime. I also do not reduce dosage it I have any PMR pain. I would definitely talk to advise you to talk to your doctor about headaches, GCA is nothing to fool around with. Good luck, adjust your Prednisone to fit your needs, we all have to figure out some of this on our own. Think positive and try to smile. ☺️

Hi r.d.s. like the others I do not understand why you need to wait half an hour. The action time of the pred also depends on whether you are taking coated or uncoated ones. I take some food at the same time as the pred, I am not sure I would be that keen hanging around for half an hour! 

This may or may not be relevant to your situation.  For some time I had been waking up with headaches.  I think this started, although it was rare, before PMR, several years ago, but it might have begun around the same time as I was sickening - not possible now to know.  It was a new thing for me, never having awoken with a headache although I have had headaches most of my life since adolescence.  It was getting progressively worse, often waking up with a headache which would usually, although not always, go away after I'd been up for a while and eaten.  On holiday recently I developed a headache during the day of our arrival although I'd been super careful to remain hydrated, and also mildly caffeinated, as usual.  Headache tablets did not do more than make the pain tolerable.  Then when I went early for breakfast within ten minutes of starting to eat the headache lifted.  Later I was talking to one of my fellow travellers and she suggested I needed more salt.  When the same sort of thing occurred later in the journey she repeated again that I needed more salt.  We were at dinner at the time so she told me to grate a little salt onto my plate and feed it to myself on my fingertip.  If it tasted good to me, almost sweet, she said, it meant I needed to consume more.  It turned out I really did like the taste of the salt!  A couple of evenings later I did the same thing and suddenly, after a few little doses, I was overwhelmed by the saltiness of it all, and knew without a doubt that finally I'd had enough!  This is now a couple of weeks ago and I'm still amazed that every morning when I wake up I feel well and haven't had a headache, morning or otherwise, since!  it must have become so regular that unless it was particularly bad I no longer noticed.  By sheer coincidence just before I left on holiday I'd obtained a library book about salt, which I hadn't had time to read.  I find it most interesting.  It points out that we have most of us been told to reduce our salt intake far too much.  It seems implausible, but unless we are eating high salt prepared foods it's possible that we aren't getting enough salt and this can have a lot of health consequences, especially if we also have low potassium and/or consume a fair amount of sugar.  I might have been a bit more skeptical, after all I haven't had a salt shaker on my table for decades and believed the recommendation to restrict salt intake, except for this unexpected positive experience I've just had. 

Prednisone can cause headaches.

I take a famotidine at night and then my pred at six, followed by a single large tablespoon of active culture yogurt. No problems with my stomach or intestines. I mainly write to warn you not to be tempted to lower your dose if you still have the stiffness to a degree that it is difficult to get out of bed. You may have to consider to increase the dose to get the inflammation under control first.

Good luck!