← Return to The lowest effective dose, how is it defined?

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@vellen

I started at 15 around the same time and just went to 10 this weekend. It may be best to go slow. The schedules I've seen show to go down 1mg every 4-6 weeks and no pain. Going too quickly will force you to go higher.

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Replies to "I started at 15 around the same time and just went to 10 this weekend. It..."

Yes Vellen, if I'd gone with the slow taper schedule handed to me at the start, I would have been due to drop to 9mg a few days ago rather than to 8mg a month ago as I did. The plan for me to be on prednisolone for up to 2 years, which I did not know till after I had started on it, shocked me and I wanted to do better than that. So I took the directive to reduce to the lowest effective dose in the shortest possible time literally and acted on it.

This is the taper I did and the length of time I stayed on each dose:
15mg - 8 days
12.5mg - 9 days
11.5mg - 10 days
(These first 3 reductions were done quickly because I knew there was a 2-3wk window in the beginning when fairly big reductions could be done without adverse effects)
10mg - 9 days
9mg - 10 days
8mg - been on it for 5 weeks so far

I had slight pain after each reduction which resolved within a week. Sometimes I see-sawed back and forth from the original and new doses a couple of times (in the first few days only) to soften the reduction. It seemed to work.

In hindsight, I should definitely have slowed reductions after the first few weeks of pushing it and especially after reaching 10mg. Dilemma: But how can you know what the lowest effective dose is unless you get breakthrough pain?