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If you have tapering problems below 5 mg this might explain why.
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Sep 10 10:38am | Replies (110)Comment receiving replies
"But if you're on a relatively low dose of prednisone and hope to be off of it at some point, it might make more sense to not take a biologic drug."
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I just wanted to add that this was exactly what I was told when Actemra was offered to me. The comment was, " If I only needed 3 mg of Prednisone there wouldn't be much concern and Actemra wouldn't have been offered." The context was 12 years on prednisone and still taking 10 mg daily. Even then, I was asked to taper my Prednisone dose as low as I could get before starting Actemra. I could only taper to 7 mg before I went back to 10 mg.
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Yes, this approach makes perfect sense, doesn't it. Yet some doctors want their patients off steroids completely as soon as possible. I have seen people get down to 5 mg of pred and have to sit their for a while while their adrenals start to wake up, and yet have a doctor insisting that they need to add in methotrexate, etc to get off the steroids. As good progress has been made already at getting so low, and more progress is likely, the risk of adding in other potentially toxic medications doesn't seem to warrant it.
Unfortunately, I seem to be in a similar position to yourself as I haven't been able to taper steroids below 10 mg after 2 years and keep flaring which shoots the dose up way too high again. Hoping that I may get approval for Actemra in the near future if the current tapering schedule fails.