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PMR Dosages and Managing Symptoms
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jul 27 8:00am | Replies (468)Comment receiving replies
Hi all,
I was diagnosed in PMR in March after taking Lipitor for a month - it seemed to trigger the PMR. Once diagnosed I was started on Prednisone 20 mg OD and was doing a very slower taper. I reacted very positively to this dose. However, once I got down to 10 mg a day some mild symptoms returned and now that I am 9 mg OD much of the hip pain has returned. I called my rheumatologist and was told that I could go back up to 10 mg a day or as high as 11 mg a day. I am not sure such a mild increase will work - I was expecting to be put back up to 20 mg a day and then start slowly tapering again. What has your experience been if you developed fairly sever symptoms while tapering?
Replies to "Hi all, I was diagnosed in PMR in March after taking Lipitor for a month -..."
Your initial dose of 20 mg is fairly typical. You seem to indicate that you immediately started tapering down. You might discuss this with your doctor, of course. But it's a good idea to go back to the last dose that you had NO pain. Then stay there for a couple of weeks. You should never taper if you are feeling any pain. Once you are feeling really well, you can begin your tapering again - slowly. If you go too fast, you will probably have pain again. You are not in a race. Just think about the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise wins in this race too!!
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Hi @kimberlynitz66, Welcome to Connect. Tapering off of prednisone for PMR can be very difficult and needs to be slowly. Usually if my pain symptoms returned when I had tapered down, I tried upping the dosage by half of the previous taper so it was still less than the previous dose. Each of us are different but I think you are still early in your PMR being diagnosed in March. The first my PMR came out it took me 3 and half years to taper off. The second time 1 and half years. You will notice that we moved your post to an existing discussion on the same topic here:
-- PMR Dosages and Managing Symptoms: https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/pmr-dosages/
You might want to jump to the top of the discussion by clicking the link above and read through the posts of what others have shared to see if anything rings a bell for you. Do you keep a daily pain log and dosage to help you keep track of your tapering?