Prednisone

It's a steroid, bro.

I know, but not anabolic. Does that matter?

It's all in your head. Prednisone isn't much of a PED. It does however cause salt retention and consequently excessive thirst. It also inflamed my sinuses.

Regardless, it will cause you to fail a drug test.

I was on prednisone once for a nasty allergic reaction. During the week I was taking it it completely reversed a serious trace of overtraining. I stopped, so did the great workouts.

Of course, it also has some really nasty side effects if you take it for any period of time, and is certainly cheating.

This has been discussed in earlier threads. This drug can be dangerous, especially when high dosage is given for asthma attacks or infections. In some cases blood flow to bones can be cut off and the ends of bones can die off. Look up avascular necrosis.

I'm replying to this old thread because I just started taking prednisone Saturday. I had a normal day Saturday but then Sunday, I felt AMAZING on my training run. I had set out to do a normal 9 miler, but extended it to 13.2 miles just because I was feeling so good.

I'm taking prednisone to boost my platelet count before a surgery. I don't recommend taking it for a race. That is a ridiculous idea. It might help you feel like a superman, but I'm afraid you might injure yourself if you don't feel pain you otherwise normally would. Prednisone is a steriod, not a painkiller, but my experience was a pain-reducing one. And it gave me boundless energy. Taking it for a race would be cheating, for sure.

Prednisone gives us "regular folks" just a hint of what it might be like to take serious PEDs. As a medicine, I've seen it used for everything from asthma to emphysema to sinusitis to acne. It works near-miracles in the short term. And, as mentioned above, it can empower some ridiculous runs. Imagine being able to train at that quality for an extended period (including getting more miles and more workouts due to enhanced recovery times), and then tapering off in time to pass a drug test while maintaining the physiological benefits of the training. No wonder people get banned for taking stuff like that!

My grandfather just had to have his hip replaced due to degeneration caused by long term use of prednisone. Be careful.

This is interesting to me, because I had to take prednisone for a week last summer and couldn't wait to be off it. I felt really different, and not in a good way. It knocked out the condition it was supposed to, but in the way an atomic bomb can rid weeds from your garden.

Wonderful tool that Google.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a601102.html

OP, i took prednisone for two weeks during XC (had a bad rash)

i did notice i recovered a little better from hard workouts, but at that point in the season i wasn't doing much volume, starting to get down to 70mpw for conferences so i couldnt see the effects on high milage

only thing is, when i was on the high end (beginning) of the prednisone taper, i would get real edgy. i remember going to a class and taking an essay test and just laughing crazily during the test, on the back of it i wrote "sorry, that paragraph sucked", which was kinda a weird thing to do in retrospect, the rest of the day was weird

It won't cause you to fail a drug test. It's basically cortisone, like what athletes get injected with. One of the physicians for the 49er's talked about using short term "dose packs" for the players at a medical seminar 5 years ago.

Long term use will suppress your adrenal glands (adrenal insufficiency), decrease collagen synthesis, cause insulin resistance, etc.

Basically a strong anti-inflammatory so it suppresses the soreness, throbbing and aching you would normally feel after a hard work out. It doesn't strengthen anything (long term use actually weakens the structural building blocks of your body (collagen)). I could definitely see how this can set someone up for a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Prednisone is extremely dangerous and has massive side effects for long term use. It is much more dangerous than anabolic steriods.

My son was on it for 6 days for a severe eye conjuntivitis. During the time he was on it, he had a breakthrough tempo run, significantly faster than he had done. I am not sure if this was coincidental or due to prednisone.

Today is my 4th day of taking 40mg.

The drug makes me feel "flushed" all day long. It's that feeling you have after a nice long, hot shower. I break into hot sweats occasionally for no reason. It's not so awful but sometimes makes me feel a little bit crazy, like I have too much energy.

On my runs I am still feeling amazing. I feel like warming up is totally unecessary now. I can just start running fast immediately and it's like my joints and muscles are already ready to go. I feel invincible, not just in running, but just in general. It's making me file like a tough guy, or really healthy.

Long term, I do not want to be on this stuff. My doc wants me to taper quickly after the surgery. In the meantime, at least I've gotten some good runs in, and cleaned the bathroom, and re-done our landscaping, and set up the Christmas lights, and done tons of other random work. I can't sit still.

Doc told me to up the dosage to 60mg since 40mg wasn't doing the job.

Today I ran 12 miles at my marathon pace. I have never felt better running, in my whole entire life. My training partners don't know I am taking this stuff, so they're pretty amazed with my sudden and unexpected improvement. When I ran 10 miles with them at 5:50 pace a few weeks ago, I dragged ass. Today, I could have held a conversation the whole 12 miles at this pace. It was like a walk in the park.

I have been tapering the prednisone doses and I'm now down to 5mg in the AM and 3mg in the PM. Soon I'll be off the sauce. I'm once again feeling like a mortal. I dragged ass on my 12 miler on Saturday and I'm feeling sore and limping around the office today. Looks like I'm back to my normal self.

Brumby Gully wrote:

Doc told me to up the dosage to 60mg since 40mg wasn't doing the job.

Today I ran 12 miles at my marathon pace. I have never felt better running, in my whole entire life. My training partners don't know I am taking this stuff, so they're pretty amazed with my sudden and unexpected improvement. When I ran 10 miles with them at 5:50 pace a few weeks ago, I dragged ass. Today, I could have held a conversation the whole 12 miles at this pace. It was like a walk in the park.

Buddy, the stuff is DANGEROUS. Do you not understand? Exposes you to serious and debilating long term health problems.

I know it's dangerous I'm just explaining my experience with it so ya'll understand that using it is, in fact, cheating.

By the way, I'm down to 1.0 mg per day and still tapering. My muscles have been cramping a lot lately and I've been really sore after runs. Not sure if this is simply from training or if it's evidence of adrenal insufficiency or something. My left calf muscle was twitching involuntarily all day yesterday after a 14 mile run. Not cool.

bump