I'm not telling you what to do. Prednisone does not stay in your system for a full 24 hours regardless of what dose you take. Prednisone typically clears the bloodstream in about 16 to 22 hours

Have you tried splitting your dose while keeping your total dose the same? It is usually recommended that you take your entire 12.5 mg dose in the morning. However, saving a small portion of your dose for the evening might prevent the pain at night. You might want to try 10 mg in the morning and 2.5 mg in the evening. This will keep your total dose the same.

My doctor didn't have any problem with me splitting my dose up if it helped to relieve the pain at night. I was told spitting up my dose was far better than taking a higher dose of prednisone. Some other doctor might tell you not to split your dose and they would rather prednisone be taken all in the morning when you wake up.

The following rheumatolgist mentions that it is "reasonable" to split your dose for pain at night. She mentions it at the 4 minute mark of the video but the whole video is worth watching. I like that she admits that there is NO gold standard for tapering off prednisone.