PredniSONE and chest pains

my sister was put on Prednisone for a inflamed heart and fluid around the heart, she started with 6 pills a day at 5mg for 7days, then 5 pills for 7days then 4 all the way down to 1 a day. When she got to 1 a day the EXTREME chest pains came back she was in and out of the hospital so many times it was crazy, she was then put back up to 6 a day and slowing get weaned off, however her side effects are insane, major swelling, moon face, weakness, INSOMNIA bad, rashes and bruzes are appearing everywhere, coughing a LOT, sore throat, foggy vision, shortness of breath, thats put it this way she is a MESS and to top it off her husband of 24 years passed away on April 30th, 2008 with a massive heart attack at 47 years old, she feels like she is going to go CRAZY, if anyone has any suggestions it would be so appreciated. Thank you SAD SISTER!!

To my fan fare;

Guest, #12328

"U have to be an idiot to write things like that to people like us who r really suffering because of pred. Obviously u have found the wrong website. Now go find yourself a SHRINK."

Thank you, blatent insults obviously show superior
intelligence and mental stability.
Far be it that anyone post a question or point of view based on their own experiences or independent thought that just might not "follow the crowd" so to speak.

ericgoberman,
"So Jules, 5 mg a day for a few weks and you're the expert ?"

Just so you know, I have taken as much as 60 mgs a day off and on throughout my life.
My daughter was on life support for almost a month due to asthma/pneumonia and was given 500mgs of prednisone a day.
I have sincere gratitude to prednisone for helping her survive.

And most importantly, psychosomatic DOES NOT MEAN IMAGINARY!!!
"Psychosomatic denotes a PHYSICAL DISORDER that is caused by or notably influenced by the emotional state of the patient. The word "psycho" comes from the Greek meaning breath, spirit, soul, mind. "Somatic" refers to the body, or "soma" in Greek, referring to the physical."
Soma in biology refers to the body of an organism.

To all those suffering from the horrific side-effects and those that were offended, I sincerely apologize. I should have re-worded my post.

Where I was coming from;
I could literally post hundreds of studies that show the reality of the power of mind and the power of suggestion alone on the side-effects, healing, and survival of hundreds of people.

During my 3rd year in Pre-med, many of us students started having chest pains, arrythmia's, perfuse sweating etc....guess what we were studying at the time????

While I applaud reassuring others that they are not alone in their side-effects and suffering, I personally feel that there might be certain individuals, like me, that are just starting their drug therapy that might be terrified or dissuaded in taking it because of some of the posts here. (I had a terrible time even swallowing my whopping 5 mgs.)
And yes, I even personally believe, and I repeat, PERSONALLY believe that reading about terrible side-effects of any drug can trigger the placebo effect, or side-effects that can be psychosomatic.

ALL DRUGS HAVE SIDE-EFFECTS!
For me; What it all boils down to is; the risks of any drug versus the benefits....ie...chemo has terrible side-effects, but what are the profound effects of the disease without it??????

I started taking prednisone 16 days ago for systemic poison oak. I should never have started. It made me feel awful in many ways and I couldn't wait to decrease my dosage and be finished with it. Today was the last day. And then I again started having "really bad heartburn" like I'd been having since I started it...but then the "heartburn" changed and I realized I was having severe chest pains. I ended up fainting once and almost fainting again on the way out to the car to emergency with my husband and son's help. During the short car ride I thought I could be having a heart attack...it was very scary. My fingers and toes started tingling and then vibrating strongly. I didn't know what was happening. They got me to emergency where I felt taken care of almost immediately. They were almost certain I was in fact having a reaction to the prednisone. They see this quite a bit! They took all sorts of tests to make sure it wasn't my heart, etc and they started me on an anti- anxiety IV which started helping fairly soon. They sent me home with more of this medication in case I start feeling bad again in the next few days. Hopefully this will be the end of it....and I know I will NEVER go on prednisone again in my life!