Hello @daenika87, Welcome to Connect. Sorry to hear you are struggling with fatigue along with stiffness and some pain with your PMR. 10 months is a relatively short time to get down to 5mg of prednisone compared to what others have shared. Do you mind sharing what your starting dose of prednisone was and if it got rid of all or most of your pain and stiffness?

This may sound old school but try increasing the green leafy veggies in your diet. For the last 6 months I have been doing pretty well but have found reducing prednisone a problem. I have been trying to reduce my three mg daily dose of prednisone and may just have found a way. Reducing by 1mg was too big a jump so tried 1/2 mg but that was too hard. Now I am reducing by a 1/4mg. i take 1 and 3/4 mg a day. After an initial period of upset (one week) I leveled out and I am keeping my fingers crossed as it seems to be working. Good luck to all and keep smiling.

MTX truly takes 2-3 months to really know how it will work. I’ve never been on a higher dose (15mg) of Prednisone. I’ve just started now on 9mg for 1 month and take MTX 15mg weekly as well. Hang in there!

I noticed you mentioned in a different post that you're also taking methotrexate and soon to start injections. What injections will those be?

I don't have experience with the other medications for PMR, but echoing @johnbishop, that does sound like a relatively fast taper... My dad has PMR and if he is experiencing severe weakness and fatigue, it's a sure sign (given this has happened so many times over the last 14 months since diagnosis) he's having a flare and his prednisone dose was dropped too low.

He was diagnosed and started prednisone in May 2022, and his current prednisone dose is 6.25 mg. He takes LDN (low dose naltrexone) for fatigue, does daily gentle range of motion exercises, has done PT, and also meets with a therapist regularly. They practice relaxation techniques (i.e. breath practice).