I was on Prednisone for almost three weeks for severe asthma issues. My pulmonologist prescribed first round, then I went to ER in the middle of the night because I couldn't breathe and ER doctor prescribed another round, then doctor was out of town so nurse recommended I stay on it until I could see doctor. Meantime, I was having miserable side effects: tense, angry, weepy, paranoid... until 10 days ago, when I quit my job suddenly and burned a lot of bridges with an angry letter to the board. I think that maybe the Prednisone exacerbated my diagnosed chronic depression? I looked up drug interactions for Effexor and Celexa (my depression meds) and Accolate, Singular and Albuterol (asthma meds) but nothing conclusive jumped out. Would love a reply from a medical professional or someone else who has had similar reactions to Prednisone. Thanks!
Did Prednisone cause psychotic event?
Question posted by jockimo on 31 March 2013
Last updated on 14 July 2022 by Jojocodori
11 Answers
Last January I was prescribed prednisone for ankle pain. I took it as prescribed and after day 3 went into a full blown psychosis
Yes! I had the same problems. The more they gave me the less I could breathe. And it weirded my mind out. They gave me Xanax while I tapered down. Now I won't take more than 20mg per day, no matter what they say. And only for a few days.
I use albuterol in a nebulizer when my asthma is bad. I also watch air quality outside before I leave the house. Or wear a mask on bad air days.
Good luck to you!
I was prescribed this at 60mg a day recently. Day four I started to see side affects, I lost my mind, I could not focus, I was depressed and suicidal. I stopped taking prednisone after day 5, this was the day I was going suicidal amd was losing it. I experienced a four day psychotic episode where i told people i was dying and that I can never work again. Thankfully five days later my mind cleared and I could rationalize. I drove and thought i was flying. I am now day 6 since my last pill and still recovering. I have nerve damage in my arms and legs so they are numb. I can only manage a few hours of doing something before I get dizzy and lethargic, even watching tv is tiring. I cant sleep because when I do I am immediately woken because I cant feel my feet. I went my doctors and litterally broke down and told her I cant live like this. Reading other peoples comments makes me wonder how much worse I had gotten had I kept taking the prednisone and I am fortunate that I was not admitted but I felt I was close.
I was on Prednisone for 2 weeks for cluster headaches it mad me punch my son in the chest several for not telling us his younger sister was hurt for the 1st time ever also Ive been on crazy rants and a rampage against everyone I know I jumped on the bed put my hand around my wife's neck for telling me to leave her alone and called her stupid b words for the 1st time ever I'm quiting this drug now she almost left me and took the kids with her until she told me who did I marry are you losing your mine and what the hell is in the medication and we discovered all these post and it saved me marriage coming to this site and I'm quiting the drug as of today thanks drugs.com
Dec. 31st 2016 I went to the Dr. with a bad cold. Fever of 104 and asthma wheezing really bad. I was given a rx for antibiotic and a prednisone course. 10mg tabs. Take 4 pills the first day 3 the 2nd ect. I was so ill I wrote down what I took, and when to keep it straight. I only remember the first two days. I lost 7 full days of memory. Thank God my husband and mother took turns caring for me. I was manic and delirious. I wouldn't eat or sit still. My husband had to bathe and dress me. They both were beyond freaked out. They didn't know if it was permanent! They called a psych hospital who said they would not admit me unless I was a danger to myself or others. I was talking nonsense and saying "happy new year" over and over. My husband took me to an ER where they did all kinds of tests that came back normal. Cat scan, blood work, ect. My husband had the Dr ask me what year it was and I replied 1972.
In spite of this they did nothing for me. They did charge my husband $250. before examining me however. Luckily my mother told my husband to stop giving me any meds. I have had prednisone in the past and never reacted like this before. I slowly started returning to sanity after a week. I went to my primary care physician who told me not to take most medications I was on and come back in a month. I see him in a week and I am still having trouble sleeping. I also lost about 30lbs. Luckily I'm overweight so no biggie. I occaisonally have heart palpitations. Not bad enough to get me worried. Also a few headaches. I must say I will never take this drug again. My Dr said to consider myself "allergic" to it. I can only wonder how many people have had such a scary reaction to a drug so commonly prescribed?
I also developed Steroid Psychosis after taking 10mg per day. I have Ulcerative Colitis. I was on Prednisone a total of 9 days before I took myself off of it. I was delusional, paranoid and delirious. I also had extreme sweating, severe insomnia and developed reddish-purple bruising all over the back of both my thighs. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital on day 11, where I was admitted for 3 weeks. They had to treat me with Anti-Psychotics and Depakote to pull me out of it. This was the most horrifying experience I've ever gone through. On all of my medical charts it now states that I am highly allergic to steroids. May God Bless anyone who has ever gone through this horror.
My daughter took prednisone in march of 2016 for hives. She is mentally handicapped but was a sweet loving girl, who talked, rode her bike, went to school, karaoked and even had a simple little job. Day four she started talking to herself, day 10 we stopped. She has been psychotic ever since. We put her on Risperdal in October of 2016 and have had issues with her being on awful drug. We are starting to see parts of her personality come back although now we have the issue of trying to get her of risperdal without being thrown into pscyhosis again. I read somewhere (wish i could remember where) that a young girl took 2 years to recover fully from psychosis after prednisone. I am thinking my daughter, Gloria, might be able to recover if we can ever get her off risperdal. For many months i thought her life (and mine) were over. Her entire life, personality and world has changed. Want my sweet daughter back.
Lots of typos hope you guys get the point
I had a doctor put me on Prednisone for a throat issue once... after about the 7th day, when I punched my roommate in the face and broke her nose for no reason I stopped taking it. I found that when I was on prednisone I was ... not just angry, but in an absolute rage ALL THE TIME. All I wanted to do was hurt people. I went to another doctor for the same throat issue and he was the one that told me prednisone will cause some level of psychosis in about %80 of patients that take it.
I've been on prednisone on a regular basis since 1999 and will tell you first hand it does many unusual things to ones body and mind. It will give you mood swings. I have taken as much as 120mg's on a bad day and still end up in the hospital from anaphylaxis due to unknown allergies. I saw where someone posted on here that their mother who has been taking prednisone for 30 years and noticed facial hair growth, and someone responded the drug was not the cause. I completely disagree with that response. It most certainly promote unusual hair growth in places you wouldn't think hair could grow. Prednisone is a horrible drug to take, but for some of us there is no other option. I have been everywhere -Mayo Clinic, UIC-Center for advanced meds, Loyola, and now Northwestern-Chicago to find an alternative to the prednisone and have yet to find something. I control my appetite by drinking a lot of water before I eat, as I did gain a lot of weight at first.
It also has created many other problems especially in my knees and vision. There are so many adverse affects to this drug they won't even tell you them. I have been given drugs for inflammation while taking prednisone, and ended up in the hospital with severe pains in my knees and there's not much they can do for this. I have found that when I get these severe pains in my knee joints that walking is the only thing that helps. Don't let anyone fool you, prednisone is not good at all, and there is no way in hell I would ever suggest anyone taking it if you did not have to. For me it is a matter of life or death, so I choose the first rather than the latter...
Prednisone is the most horrible medication I have ever had the misfortune of taking! Last year I was given a two-week LOW oral dose of prednisone. By day three, I thought my radio was talking to me! By that night, I was having religious delusions that the devil was torturing me and that neither I nor my family were "saved." Although I believe in salvation, I am Catholic and therefore do not believe in "once saved, always saved" as it is taught in many other churches. I hadn't slept for at least four days, and I was terrified by many delusions, hallucinations, and psychotic thoughts and experiences I was having. I am 24 and have no psychiatric history. The next morning, I was sweating so bad, even with the AC down to 70 in my apartment, that I literally thought I was in purgatory suffering to save myself and my family from damnation. I was writing nonsense in a journal and had the sensation of time standing still.
I was absolutely delirious by the time my fiancée left work to come get me. First, I had a delusion that to survive purgatory I had to drink all of the water in my apartment. Then, I thought that the devil was putting that thought in my head so I would poison myself with water. When my fiancée reached me, although I was unaware of it, I was in only my underwear and about to pass out. He helped me out to his car after grabbing my bible at my insistence just to get me to come along. I kept saying I wanted to go to his grandparents' a full 45 minutes away. He took me to the hospital and I willingly let them admit me (mostly because I was too out of it to realize that's what they were doing). Then I spent the next 6 hours in a holding room because this hospital had no psychiatric facilities and they had to figure out where to send me. I am told I smacked a nurse, threatened other staff that came into the room, threw myself on the floor, and tried to fight the police officers who finally drove me to another hospital for treatment. The whole thing was terrifying! I don't remember but about 30 minutes to an hour of being held in that room, but my consciousness sure came back after I was put in handcuffs and shackles. My poor mom had to watch as I was placed in the back of a police car, crying for her and scared to death. I beat my knuckles bloody all the way to the other hospital, which I only know because I woke up with bloody hands. Then all I remember is them wheeling me, still in handcuffs and shackles, up an elevator and into what I'm sure was the ER. What seemed like tons of staff surrounded me and I was only minimally conscious of what was going on. I had a horrible delusion that I was dying and would be reborn as an infant with my current mentality and memories, but no way to communicate. Then I had delusions about my future mother-in-law coming into my room, yapping and refusing to shut up. Then I just stared at a light on the floor and the next time I remember anything is a week later, still staring at that light. I was still slightly delusional, thinking that a random car I could see parked in the parking lot when I could finally get the strength up to go to the bathroom was my fiancée's just because it was the same type of car. I vaguely remember becoming semi-conscious during a forced shower after which a nurse had to dry me off. I was so weak and out of it that I couldn't talk and my movements were very clumsy. After that, I went through a period where I couldn't walk without a walker! I would later find out in counseling that this was most likely due to a negative reaction to the antipsychotics they gave me, which could have been alleviated by giving me just one more type of medication. I couldn't speak and had to write down what I wanted to say. The first time I was fully consciously aware of my family and my fiancée visiting me, I cried and asked them in broken, slurred words if I'd had a stroke. I was afraid they were just protecting me from the truth when they told me I hadn't. I spent 3 weeks total in the hospital and was terrified nearly the whole time, give or take about 3 days before I left. I will NEVER take prednisone again as long as I live if I can help it! By far the most horrible and terrifying experience of my life!
OMG, ready your comment was like reading what my sister would write!
Her doctor had her on 65mg of pretend one and she weighs about 130 lbs.
She is in her early 70's, but acts like a much younger person. She kept telling me everyone thinks I am crazy but it is the medication. He cut her dosage back and said it would take time to cut it own. She went to the hospital twice and had a terrible expierence both time. (She has had breast cancer three times and a bone marrow transplant and she never had a bad experience like these two times. Now he is in a behavioral hospital that the police took her to just as you were taken. She has been there a week and the psychiatrist tells her family she is not cooperative. I can't imagine any doctor giving a patient more that their body can accept. Surely they know to work up to a specific amount and watch for dude effects. My sister thinks that her family has vomited her. They say she is belligerent and at times not responsive.
Her heart would race, she talks nonstop, has a list of things she needs everyone go be doing- exactly the way she wants them, she is planning trips for all the major holidays. She has just finished raking the last meds. She was given the medication by her doctor for suvire unknown allergies after having difficulty breathing. I worry the cause of her age that he may have difficulty bouncing back. It was shocking go read your comment as it is so similar!
OMG, reading your comment was like reading what my sister would write!
Her doctor had her on 65mg of predisone and she weighst about 130 lbs.
She is in her early 70's, but acts like a much younger person. She kept telling me everyone thinks I am crazy but it is the medication. Her doctor cut her dosage back and said it would take time to cut it down. She went to the hospital twice while tapering off the med and had a terrible expierence both times. (She has had breast cancer three times and a bone marrow transplant and has never had a bad experience like these two times. Now she is in a behavioral hospital that the police took her to just how you were taken. She has been there a week and the psychiatrist tells her family she is not cooperative. (I can't imagine any doctor giving a patient more that their body can accept. Surely they know to work up to a specific amount and watch for side effects.) My sister thinks that her family has commited her.
Her family, all males, says she is belligerent and at times not responsive. Her heart would race, she talks nonstop, she always has a list of things she needs everyone to be doing- exactly the way she wants them, she has been planning, booking and paying for trips for all the major holidays. She has just finished taking the last meds. She was given the medication by her doctor for suvire unknown allergies after having difficulty breathing. I worry because of her age, that she may have difficulty bouncing back. It was shocking to read your comment as it is so similar!
I have been on prednisone do to allergies this is my first year but I am having severe anger issues because never use to be I use to be calm and collective now I bite everyone's head off I can't even be around kids because of it can't even get a job or hold a job because it but I have stopped taking it and the problem keep persisting now depression has started to the point of want to end it all ! Need to find out who created it and sue the pharmaceutical company before it gets really bad and worse things happen!
I too suffer from bronchial asthma. I'd been given it amd told my doctor after a steroid dos. Pack I was experiencing, anger, extreme aggrivation, and sleeplessness while on them. She said alot of people have this reaction. A few months later she prescribed It to me while I had mono. I ended up in a mental health facility. Extreme psychosis, bio polar, mania, delusions. I don't know it wasn't until day 16 I actually said to myself. Where am I and what's going on. Steroid injections I can't take as well. They as well store in your tissues up to seven years. I've had about 4 shots in my lifetime. Steroids are nothing to mess with. They're just now starting major studies on the adverse reaction of prolonged use of steroids. As most cases that are severe are in very sick patients on it for a while cancer patients, aid patients. People with pulmonary diseases, or acute asthma. I wouldn't take it anymore. To be honest with you.
Hello. Been on prednisone for eight years continuously. A year or two ago I became very angry, moody and deeply depressed. I was given alprazolam and it was like night and day. No more panic attacks and I felt so much better. The next step was to change my depression medication to another SSRI. Am doing well and all of the mood problems disappeared. Should I feel agitated, I can take an alprazolam.
There are things that can be done when on medications. It takes a call to a receptive doctor and a good long appointment to discuss the emotional problem. It also helps to get a therapist that specializes in medically induced depression and anxiety. One can gain control of ones life even though the body has not caught up with healing.
I don't know about you, but I was on albuterol for a very short time. It raced my heart and made me feel crazy. Lucky I was in the hospital. A drug I cannot take. I have ILD. Lungs are shot from disease. Karen
Yes prednisone can cause psychotic events. I have to put that I'm allergic to it sends me into a series of spiral events that is not good at all. And my fiancée just found out the same bad effect on himself. Steroid injections do not effect you like oral steroids due though. So remember that might can be an option. Sorry you have had to find out the hard way. You'll be in our prayers.
Hi J!my hubby is on P for 4weeks now for severe psuedo tumour in th eye socket!
As his wife I could see how my man has change from day 1!he is due to go 4 MI scan this coming Tuesday!@1st he was sick on this med!then agitation startd!was frustrated with the pain!talks in his sleep!wake up and r confuse!but I think its th interaction with other tablets,his on lyrica 175mg x2/dtremedol50mgx3/d loriem20mg/d
Prednisone sure can mess you up mentally. Large doses over a long period of time, can make you agtitated. My cousin was put on a high dose for lupus and her behavior became totally irrational and agitated. You need to be weaned off of it, asap, and see what your mood is like then.
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Further information
- Prednisone uses and safety info
- Prednisone prescribing info & package insert (for Health Professionals)
- Side effects of Prednisone (detailed)
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