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Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR): Meet others & Share Your Story
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jan 27 8:38am | Replies (1879)Comment receiving replies
I am new to the group and was diagnosed with PMR in October of 2020 after 6 months of debilitating suffering (you know what I mean!). I started out at 20 prednisone and am now at 10. The 20 to 10 was done by my PCP before I saw the rheumatologist, who said it was too large and quick a reduction but kept me on it. According to drugs.com the main difference between methylpredisalone and prednisone is that methylp. is slightly stronger. Four mg of methylp. is equivalent to 5 mg pred. I am not a doc but from what I've read 60 seems a bit high, esp. with no GCA. My rheumatologist is keeping me on 10 even though I told him I still have some discomfort, esp. in the morning. I can take the discomfort (about a 1-2 on pain scale) and would rather be on a lower dose than a higher one. We love the benefits of prednisone but oh, those side effects! Please talk to your doc about the persistent pain despite the high dose.
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Hello @moni54, Welcome to Connect. Thanks for sharing your PMR story. I'm with you on the rather be on a lower dose of prednisone crowd but pain is the boss when it comes to PMR and tapering. I've had 2 occurrences which my Mayo rheumatologist started me on 20 mg prednisone for both occurrences. I was told to take it slow and easy when tapering and listen to what my body was telling me. I found I could live with a little pain or discomfort which probably like you was around a 1-2 on the pain scale. I didn't tolerate the 1-2 well for my first occurrence with PMR and it took me 3-1/2 years to taper off. Six years later when the PMR came out of remission it took me about 1-1/2 years to taper off and the 1-2 on the pain scale was normally for the first few days after tapering to a lower dose. The last six months of each I tapered by 1 mg or 1/2 mg on a week or two week schedule. My rheumatologist really helped me with the tapering schedule when I had any questions.
Have you asked your rheumatologist on the possibility of splitting your dose and taking some in the morning and some in the evening to see if that helps reduce the pain/discomfort in the morning?