@irishdancer, I think you ask a very good question that each of us has struggled with when tapering off of prednisone. I put my tolerable pain level between 1 and 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being I can't take any more. But I'm sure the pain scale is different for each of us. When my primary care doc was following up with me, he was always asking about pain around my forehead and temples, jaw pain, scalp tenderness and then mentioned he wanted to make sure I didn't also have GCA. My discomfort never really went totally away when I tapered off the first time but if I remember correctly it was around a 1 or a tad more. I went back and forth between 1/2 mg and 1 mg prednisone the last six months of my first occurrence with PMR before I could finally taper off with tolerable pain/discomfort.

Do you keep a daily pain and dosage log? I think it would be a great question for your rheumatologist or doctor also.