Sounding the Alarm about Prednisone Heart Failure
This article is part of a series of stories of Prednisone Warriors sharing their experience with prednisone side effects. Matthew shares this story to show how doctors may overlook prednisone side effects such as prednisone heart failure. Matthew is from the United Kingdom where they have a different healthcare system than in the USA.
Sounding the Alarm: Can Prednisone Affect Your Heart?
BY MATTHEW
Prednisone Causing Heart Failure
Matthew
Can Prednisone Cause Irregular Heartbeat?
The answer is YES. Prednisone can cause irregular heartbeat, arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation (A fib), heart failure (CHF), and other heart conditions. In fact, prednisone use is associated with a 2.56 times greater risk of heart diseases than if you weren’t taking prednisone.
Doctors May Misdiagnose Prednisone Side Effects
I agree with Matthew. Many doctors do not suspect prednisone could be the cause of what their patient is struggling with.
I can understand why the doctors don’t suspect prednisone. It is often prescribed when a person is very sick, and many other issues could be contributing to their health challenges.
In addition, prednisone side effects are not very well documented in typical drug lists. It’s possible a doctor could check one side effect list and the patient’s side effect isn’t even listed! Had they checked a different list, it may have shown up.
The problem is a huge lack of research documented about prednisone. Since prednisone is such an old drug, no Pharma company ever did the research they now require of newer drugs to find out specific side effects and their incidence.
Research Shows Mismatch Between Doctor and Patient Side Effect Perception
Brand new research shows this in sharp relief. The researchers studied children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). These children’s parents reported side effects to treatment 67% of the time within one year of diagnosis. That’s in sharp contrast with the doctors, who only reported side effects (actionable adverse events) 36% of the time.

This shows that you need to be your own advocate for letting your doctor know that you are suffering side effects to prednisone. They might not even suspect it being prednisone, even though it often is.
Is it a Prednisone Side Effect or Not?
Finally, if you are wondering if what you are suffering is a prednisone side effect, check out my searchable Ultimate List of Prednisone Side Effects. You can search it for both the medical terminology or the common name of what you are feeling.
Do you have a Prednisone Warrior story you want to share?
Contact Dr. Megan and we can feature it!
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