I was diagnosed with PMR in October 2025. I started out at 10mg prednisone and due to concerns of also having Giant cell, my dose eventually reached 60mg/day in February 2026. In March I began to taper my prednisone intake by 10mg every 2 weeks. On May 8th, my dosage was down to 10mg/day. At this point, my rheumatologist had me reduce my 1 mg every 3 weeks. There was a good reason for slowing down the taper once I reached 10mg. The bodies adrenal glands won't start to kick in to produce cortisol until you are below 7mg of prednisone. The body produces about 6-7mg of cortisone daily, so at a dose of 7mg or higher prednisone, the body stops producing it and shuts that down. I am now at 5mg prednisone and will begin to drop my dosage to .5mg every 3 weeks. This will allow my adrenal glands to hopefully have enough time to produce the cortisol I need to
prevent a relapse of PMR symptoms. I think the main goal is to go very slow during the taper at this stage to allow the bodies adrenal system to get back to normal. I still feel kind of strange with being light headed and sort of a numbing feeling and fatigued, but for the most part my pain is at a tolerable level and mainly in my hips when I first get out of bed and getting up after sitting awhile.