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← Return to Tapering off of Prednisone
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I have a complicated situation I would like feed-back on: I started out a little over a year ago on 20mg of pred and the relief was immediate and profound. I also have Crohn's and am on 2 grams of sulfasalazine a day. I also take Low Dose Naltrexone, 2 mg a day. At my intake my sed rate was normal and my CRP only a little elevated. But my symptoms were classic and my response to the pred was classic also.
After a time, my Rheumy had me taper and here is the first question: He tapers at 4 mg intervals about a month apart. Looking at everyone else, I see much smaller and longer tapers. Sure enough, I flared about 2 months ago and am at 12 mg now and doing better but not as well as I would like (or was). I have added MSM to my routine so now I am a lot of OTC and perscription anti-inflamatories. My sed rate is still normal and my CRP down to the high normal cutoff for their lab so my doc doesn't think my other pain and stiffness is PMR. Wants me to explore nerve conduction studies for my legs. It takes forever to get those apts. I am having my hip replacement checked just in case. (Done in 2020) I don't want more pred because in have glaucoma and I am pushing as it is. I think he is relying on my labs too much for his decision making. I welcome opinions.
Replies to "I have a complicated situation I would like feed-back on: I started out a little over..."
I’ve heard that when you’re on a higher dose of prednisone you can taper with larger numbers. But when you get to a lower dose (like 10 mg), you need to do what my doctor called a “dead taper” and that it will take me one and a half to two years to get off the 10 mg of prednisone I’m currently taking.
Good luck!
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@suetex, you mentioned you flared a couple of months ago but were doing OK prior to that. When my PMR was active the first few time tapering down I went from 20 to 15 for a month and tried to go down again but the PMR pain came back so I bumped it up half of what I took it down and the PMR pain was gone again at 17.5 mg. From then on I tapered slowly, never more than 1 to 2.5 mg. At the time I was tapering bi-weekly but as I got further along I changed to a weekly taper. My Rheumatologist told me that I should taper based on how I felt and what I could tolerate. I kept a daily pain log along with how much prednisone I took that morning. If my pain was more than a 2 on my own scale of 1 to 10 highest pain, I stayed at the same dose for another few days to see if I could taper down. If it was higher, I bumped my dosage up a half of the previous taper to see if I could still keep it less than the previous dosage.