An "effective dose" takes into account a variety of factors. It isn't only about pain. Even if it was only about pain --- the amount of pain people tolerate varies widely. I like to think I can tolerate pain. Some days I just need to do something about the pain more than other days.

My rheumatologist gave me some guidelines to follow but nothing was set in stone. The principal she went by was that I should find a "stable dose" of prednisone that worked for me. She didn't want me to abruptly change my dose without a good reason and she wanted to be included in the decision making.

She said adjusting my dose should be done in smaller increments especially when under 10 mg. Going up or down by 1 mg was okay as long as the overall trend was down. If the trend was going up than that caused her some concern but she didn't make me feel guilty. She just wanted to investigate what else might be going on.

There wasn't a set period of time when I had to be on 0 mg. She said treating PMR would likely be a long process. Maintaining a stable dose was most important but she expected it would be years before I could taper off. It ended up being 12 years.

After about 2 years my rheumatologist starting introducing other medications to get my prednisone dose lower. Some of those other medications had varying degrees of success too.

Everyone has a different kind of maze in terms of underlying health conditions, side effects, pain tolerance just to name a few of the many factors involved.