Everyone is different. Everyone tapers differently. Prednisone conceals pain and so when you taper, orthopedic pains may appear that you forgot you had or you did not know you had while you were on steroids. As you taper, it is easy to confuse re-emerging PMR pain with emerging orthopedic pain. One way to tell the difference is to get X-rays of your affected areas to determine if you have osteoarthritis as well as PMR and if you do, whether it may be the arthritis not the PMR that is the source of your pain. I have never been "pain free" as I taper but I have recently learned the pain I experience is from arthritis in the hips and stenosis of the spine and not from PMR. I take 1000 to 1500 mg of acetaminophen to control the arthritic pain while I taper from prednisone with the help of Kevzara.