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← Return to Tapering prednisone
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Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: 12 hours ago | Replies (15)
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I started prednisone at 10mg. My tapering schedule is reducing 1mg every 4 weeks. From what I’ve read here, many startreducing by .5mg. I was doing great until 7mg when I started to feel fatigue, discomfort in one shoulder, pelvis and back of legs. I’m wondering if the schedule is too fast, maybe I should be reducing by .5. So far the discomfort is manageable but I’m nothing close to feeling myself.
Replies to "I started prednisone at 10mg. My tapering schedule is reducing 1mg every 4 weeks. From what..."
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Since prednisone can give you extra energy and also hides pains that have nothing to do with PMR, the reduction of prednisone could cause some tiredness and uncover some normal discomfort. It’s hard to know what is a problem and what is part of the tapering process. I’ve been told that some soreness and stiffness is OK but pain is not. Though of course everybody’s going to have their own interpretation of that.
In my case, I try to give everything time to settle down, even though it sometimes takes me several weeks to adjust to a new dose. Going from 2 mg to 1 mg last month was the first time that I had a truly unacceptable reaction and contacted my doctor, who told me I could go back up to 1.5 mg for two weeks and try again. I stretched it to three weeks, but I’m back down to 1 mg. I’m still adjusting and feel worse than I would like, but I do feel like I’m improving every day.
Going slow can be very effective, but limiting the length of time of exposure to prednisone is definitely a factor in my thinking.