Myasthenia Gravis Support Group

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neuromuscular disease leading to fluctuating muscle weakness and fatiguability. The hallmark of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after periods of rest. Although myasthenia gravis may affect any voluntary muscle, muscles that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, and...

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Question about prednisone dosing

grecogirl
grecogirl

Are you supposed to take your prednisone all a once or can you split it up?  Let's say you have 5 mg tablets, but need to up your dosage as you are having problems, like I am.  Should I take 20 to 30 mg at one or can I split it up?  I am dancing as fast as I can here trying to get a handle on this recent flare.  I took 15 mg last night before bed and 10 mg this morning and a couple of Mestinon today each about 3 hours apart and I am wondering if I should take another 10 mg now around 3:00 o'clock and then 15 mg again tonight.  I go see the neuro on 12/27 and can check with him, but in the meantime, still trying to get a handle on this.

Rhanson
Rhanson
I had 5, 10, 20 mg pills, so didn't have to split them until I was down pretty low, then split the 5's. I liked to take my pills in the morning as I think the sleeping problems were less so if I took them in the morning.
Later I started alternate day pills. My neuro said if I was taking 10 per day, I could switch to 20 on alternate days to try that out. It seemed to be OK, and she thought alternate day dose was better as I tapered low as it would be more likely to stimulate my adrenal glands to start up again.
Most of the effect of prednisone on MG is the immune suppression, and that is not really affected by when in the day you take it as the suppression is slow to take effect (it seems to be weeks or months) and only slowly does the immune system react to starting up the antibody production again.
There are other effects (side effects) of prednisone -- not just the MG, that you may notice by changing the time of the pills.
Good Luck
Russ
Rhanson
Rhanson
By the way, you can get 1 mg prednisone pills too, I looked in my medicine cabinet and had some of those left too.
Sometimes for a "burst" of prednisone it is prescribed in "dose packs" The person takes pills for 6 days and then quits. You can see the daily schedule at
http://pharmacytechniciansletter.therapeuticresearch.com/mobile/Newsletter.aspx?nidchk=1&cs=&s=PTL&is=072017&vo=1&dd=270704&vodd=9
barbie-girl
barbie-girl
I take (3) 20mg per day. My Neuro says to take them all once for a total dose of 60mg. It's a large dose, I know and am hoping to taper down one day. It's only been 1 month at such a high dose.
grecogirl
grecogirl
I think when this started 2 years ago and after four months of suffering, I finally got the Mestinon and then Prednisone and it seems I got up to 50 mg and then started to taper down. I am still struggling though with symptoms and upping the Prednsione. I think I am getting up towards 30 at this point. I am also taking 3-4 Mestinon a day. I am getting frustrated, as I am not seeing hardly any results, just spurts of where I think I am getting better and then feel like I am falling back. I am also experiencing different symptoms than I have in the past. I don't seem to have the muscles to sneeze and coughing seems off too. My legs feel heavy and clumsy. I go to the neuro on the 27th of this month, so I am hanging on by a thread it seems.