Newly diagnosed with a mild case!

I started on 15 mg. The initial relief was huge, but it took about 5 weeks for maximum effect. Even then. My shoulders were still a little sore for about 2 hrs after taking pred, but not painful enough to get in the way of activities.

It’s terrible. I never heard of it either. Good luck and get better.

After enduring fairly extreme pain for a week until an adequate dose of P was obtained, my successful and mostly very-low pain taper was from 30 to 10 over a three-month period, then at 1 per month to 5, then at 0.5 per month to zero.
Although we seem to respond somewhat differently to prednisone treatment for PMR, most folks posting here seem to have more than their share of bad pain experiences and related problems when, 1) they were never on a high enough dose for long enough to suppress the pains adequately, or, 2) they taper too fast, and/or 3) they are unable to timely consult with their doc when things are not going as expected and perhaps start unilaterally chasing a bouncing ball of dosages, and/or 4) they have not taken advantage of the wealth of professional publications available here to understand PMR and related conditions sufficiently, and what it is reasonable to expect.
Most of all, you need a knowledgeable accessible doc with experience with PMR and related conditions.
I wish you all the very best on your journey dealing with PMR.

How long did you have full relief before you started to taper?

The normal starting dose is 12.5mg to 25mg. It seems most people start at 15mg and stay there for a month. I started at 15mg and the stiffness was almost gone within a few hours, but sometimes it takes a few days.

It was at least a month. Just because the pain is better doesn't mean the inflammation is under control. The pain lessened right away, but the weakness took a while. It seems like all doctors have you taper at a different rate, I think it's really what you can tolerate. To be honest, you will probably start to taper and then feel awful again and have to go back up a few mg's. I could not seem to get below 8 mg. I've been doing this for a couple years and now am getting Actemra infusions once a month and tapering off the steroid at the same time. It's kind of like when you have surgery to fix your broken ankle. They can say it's healed, but it will never feel or work the same. I'm hoping the weakness I have can be remedied with strength training. And I'm very tired if I do anything strenuous at all, which was not the case before. So we'll see what happens. I've raged against steroids and tried to go to fast, and it isn't worth it. Yes, you will gain weight, but you need to get your body healed.

Thanks. I was diagnosed in December 2024 and my rheumatologist started me on a low dose of 4 mg of prednisone. That did the trick for me. My pain was gone within a few hours.I never had to increase my dose. I started tapering last month and i am currently down to 2 mg with relatively no pain at all. Im praying im in remission. Ive never experienced the weakness. I walk every day and I think that helps me a lot. I’m hoping to be completely off prednisone within the next two months. I feel blessed that my PMR was a very mild case. Good luck to you and your journey. And thank you for your quick response. It really does help to talk to people that are going through basically the same things.

You are lucky. I’ve been on 10mg for almost a month and am in pain still mainly the mornings. I have bloodwork this coming week and probably have to up the pred for a bit. Good luck and hope the best for you.

Try splitting your dose, morning and dinner to ease the morning pain