Hi, njtodctode, If I had to say anything about your tapering history, it would probably be what else can you get wrong? For starters - you stayed on your initial dose of 20mg for a whole two weeks! Uh, uh, uuuh!! And if I'm reading you correctly, it sounds like your inflammatory markers were up there pretty good. Most of us stay on our initial starting dose at least twice that long - depending on our symptoms and blood tests. At two weeks, the prednisone hasn't had enough time to clear out all that inflammation that has been building up in your system. So, you went ahead and lowered your dose meaning less "ammo" to work on that inflammation. It's no wonder you started having more pain! Yes, I guess you could try going back to 15mg, as suggested, and see how that works for you. If, at 15mg you're still in pain, you'll know that's not enough, and you should ask your doctor if you need to go higher. Once you get to a spot where you're no longer in pain, you need to stay there for a while until you're feeling really good. Then, you would start tapering down gradually, maybe 1 mg every 3-4 weeks, until you get to 10mg and are feeling good. But never go down if you're feeling pain.
Then you have to start slowing it down a little more. All of this can take awhile. But that's how you stay out of pain, and hopefully that's how you eventually get yourself off the prednisone. It takes a lot of patience. Good luck to you.