I'm newly diagnosed (March '26) and yes, I wish I'd have known more about the tapering challenges of prednisone. Not that it'd have made much difference, but I was contantly emailing my doctor through the patient portal to ask if these symptoms were "normal." The very first 20mg dose did feel like a miracle! No pain! No stiffnes! And I, too, would like to know more about "why" the body seems to suddenly want to attack itself. Before my symptoms began, I'd had a stressful several months: my father-in-law died, my mom died, I'd had basal thumb joint surgery, my sister fell on black ice and broke her hip. I didn't feel stressed, just dealt with everything but the first symptom started about 4 weeks after my surgery when, at a follow up appt, I asked my surgeon if it was normal to feel pain further up my arm to my elbow. He said "no.' But I assumed I was overcompensating or something. By mid-Feb both arms--wrists, elbow, shoulders--were stiff and hurting.
Why and how might accumulated stress trigger and autoimmune response?

Another thing, since I'm "new" to this disease, I'm not clear on what is an actual "flare" and what just continues to be dealing with the symptoms after weaning off prednisone? I'm taking both hydroxychloroquin and methotrexate and almost finished with 2.5mg prednisone, and, while it's only been a couple weeks on the methotrexate, I still have pain and stiffness in shoulders, knees, elbows, wrists. Not as bad as it was before diagnosed, but still not total relief.