You are in the zone where your adrenals are trying to kick in and it may be worth having your cortisol levels tested to inform your decision to push on to zero or stay where you are.

I went from 7.5 to 5 mgs of Prednisone and for 3 days I was in agony and thought it was my PMR returning. I took Advil Gels (which I was told after the fact that I can't take that), and felt better within an hour. Long story short it was not the PMR it was the Prednisone. You can try Tylenol and contact your doctor to see what they recommend.

I hate to go back too, but I try to remind myself it takes less time to increase the dose, get stable, then reduce again more slowly than it will to push too fast and have a potentially bigger flare that may require a higher dose and take longer to calm down…

Can you check with your doctor? The situation you just described happens frequently to my father (he’s the one with PMR) ever since he got to 7.5 my. If he has a flare, usually his rheumatologist recommends to increase the dose for a minimum of two weeks before reducing it again.

You might also want to consider or talk to your doctor about tapering more slowly than 1 mg at a time. Once my dad go to 7.5 mg, he had to reduce by 1/2 a mg at a time because the dose is getting lower.

I don’t know if you’d want to do this or if it would work for you, but his rheumatologist uses his symptoms and labs as a guide. He gets tested about every two weeks, sometimes more if he’s directed to stay on the dose longer. Often we’ve caught a flare early this way, before he has the debilitating pain. It is kind of a pain (literally and figuratively) to go for blood draws that often.

I’m sorry the pain picked up again and hope it calms back down quickly.