Newly diagnosed with a mild case!

You could contact your doctor and discuss an increase in dose strength. They may choose to repeat your labs.
Keep track of your blood pressure at home and consider
following the Mediterranean diet. Good to stay active.

My experience was start with 20mg on Dec 9, 2024. I was feeling better in five days. Pain was gone. My dr decreased dose to 10 mg, then slow taper from there. I am now at 7.5, got as low as 6mg before I had a flare up and increased to 7mg. It’s not a quick recovery for most. It has taken me some time to accept this. This forum is filled with support, you are not alone.

Thank you. I'm so glad to have found this site. This is one crazy and scary disease. I have blood work next week and am waiting to get into see a Rheumatologist. Will see what happens with the dose of the prednisone.
Take care

I started on 15mg/day and had 95% pain relief in 3-4 days....after 3 weeks 12mg, then 10mg.
I have been getting blood drawn every 2-3 weeks to check for inflammatory markers ( CRP and Sed Rate) currently on 6mg....
Mine was immediately after a Cardiologist bumped my statins from 5mg 3x week to 10mg daily. After 20 days I could barely move and told them not taking that anymore. After 6 months of no statin the pains persisted and that's when my PCP posited that I probably developed PMR.
Good Luck!

Thank you and good luck to you as well.

I was also diagnosed with a mild case of PMR--surprisingly my legs and shoulders only hurt when laying in bed! As soon as I got up, no pain! I started with 10 mg. of Prednisone and my pain went away immediately. I tapered off of it very gradually--maybe .5 to 1 mg. every month. It took about a year to get off of it. It flared once when I caught COVID, but I was able to taper off 2 mg. within weeks. I think it recently flared again when I hurt my back, but only took 2 mg. for 2 days. My PMR started after my second COVID mRNA vaccination. I was also extremely healthy and active--pilates, dancing, and swimming 6 days a week. I rarely ever got sick in the past 25 years! My symptons never interfered with my activities, fortunately. I did notice that pushups and lifting 5# weights seemed to hurt more than usual at night, so I cut back on that and rarely have shoulder pain at night now. FYI, I am a registered dietitian and eat a primarily organic whole foods, plant-based diet, high in anti-inflammatory foods. I eat a little organic animal protein each day--maybe 3 to 4 ounces. Hope this helps you in some way. Sending hugs.

The first time they tried prednisone the dose was 20 mg. It wasn’t enough. When increased to 30 mg it was like magic. Try a higher dose.

I had bad mornings too. Ask your dr abt…….split the dose, 1/2 am and 1/2 at dinner. Made a big difference and mornings much easier. Good luck

I started prednisone 15 mgs on March 28, 2025 after experiencing pains in both my hips, left shoulder, neck, right elbow and the wrist in mid December of ‘24. I went to chiropractor, hip doctor, physical therapy and they really didn’t help after my family practicer immediately suspected PMR, but I could accept that. I was in denial. I got to see a rheumatologist who got me on prednisone and in 2 days I felt great. I’ve have osteoporosis in hips and now lower spine so rheumatologist wants to lower prednisone soon. And now I have to take Fosamax.! I stepped down to 12.5 mgs for 2 weeks and now just stepped down to 10 mgs. So far so good. BUT rheumatologist has also started me on methotrexate so we shall see what works. ( I’ve felt no ill effects of the methotrexate. ) Rheumatologist says it takes several months to see it working. My SED rate was initially 32 at family dr appt, then after a few months when I got to see rheumatologist it had jumped to 81. after prednisone it dropped to 34. We shall see what it is next week with the new prednisone level & methotrexate. Good grief!
After being healthy and going to the Y taking long walks, etc., this diagnosis blew me away.
Good luck on your journey!

The prednisone should relieve your symptoms fairly quickly - like in a few days. If not, you may need a higher dose. You want to get to a point of full relief, stay there a while, then start to slowly taper off the steriod. Like 1 mg a month at most. If you start to hurt again, go back up. Best of luck.