I had to look at the drug you mentioned as a replacement for prednisone as I should not use pred as I have glaucoma. Wow! What a long list of possible side effects and some of them pretty yucky. I would say you are very fortunate to tolerate it. I have also used Rituxan and I can't say whether it helped, but at least it didn't seem to hurt. I am using it with IvIg and the pair has finally kicked in and started to help. Only took over a year. Good thing I am patient.