@abbeyc, You will notice that we changed the title of your discussion to describe your question and hopefully bring more members with experience into the discussion. My experience has been an inital meeting with a rheumatologist who diagnosed PMR and prescribed 20 mg prednisone along with some instructions on how and when to start the tapering process. I only had labs on a yearly basis with my primary care doctor.

I was given instructions of things to watch for and call them immediately if I had pain or tenderness in the scalp or temple areas. He also told me to listen to my body when I was tapering and to keep a daily pain log from 1 to 10 along with the dosage of prednisone I took for the day. If I remember correctly I initially tapered down by 5 mg after 1 or 2 months then lowered the amount I tapered depending on how I felt in the morning when I first got up.

@tsc, @traynor4, @jmcc , @kmeikle1, @virginiaj and others may also have some thoughts or suggestions to share with you.