Hi Alan @alanbruce, Have you talked to your rheumatologist to see if they might have some suggestions? Pain tolerence and ratings are different for each of us. The first occurrence of PMR for me took 3 years before I was able to taper completely off. The last six months was going between 1 mg and 1/2 mg back and forth until I was able to be completely off with a minimal amount of pain to no pain. The problem is that pain levels for me, you and others are probably all different so it's hard to tell. I tried to live with a small amount of pain tapering between levels but if it was more than I wanted to deal with I went back up to the previous level until I felt better. Some people taper down weekly and some every two or three days, it really depends on what works for you. Normally you would work with your rheumatologist to come up with a tapering plan and go from there making changes that work for you.

What dosage are you currently on? I started both occurrences of PMR at 20 mg dose and tapered down from there - 3 years to get off the first time for me and about 1-1/2 years to get off the second time.

John