My theory on tapering prednisone
I was diagnosed with PMR in August of 2023 so it's been about 10 months. I started on 15mg of prednisone but the pain was so bad I went to 20. After a month or two I went back to 15. After being stable on 15mg my rheumatologist told me to go down 1mg a month, but I thought that was too much too fast. Instead I went down 1/2 a mg every two weeks, and now that I am down to 4mg I am going to 3 and 3/4 starting today. I have not had any setbacks. My thinking on this - and this is what I want to share - is that going down a whole mg when you are at, say 5mg, is about a 20% drop (I'm terrible at math but aprox.) That is very extreme to my thinking. I wanted to pass on this idea, I have a pill splitter with a razor blade inside so it's fairly easy to make these divisions to the tiny pills. I wonder when I read about setbacks people on this (wonderful) support group have, if the reason could be the severity of the decrease.
Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) Support Group.
I have a very bad stomach to start with so I hesitate to introduce any new supplement at this time. I take extra B vitamin and extra D along with a daily multiple. Thanks for the reply.