5 days of prednisone 40 mg is what my doctor prescribes in these situations. It is for the inflammation. It is unlikely that this dosage and length of time could do any body harm IMO but people fear prednisone for whatever reason. I have an autoimmune disease and have been on low dose prednisone for probably 40 years and at 78 I'm still walking around with no broken bones and periodically I have to increase the dosage to 40 mg for 5 days then 5 days at 20 then 5 days at 10 then back to my normal 5 mg. You want the inflammation in your lungs due to an infection to subside and the prednisone is the way to achieve that. I'm not a doctor. This is just my opinion.