I'm no doctor, so confer with yours before making changes.

They tell us to take the full dose in the morning because that mimicks the body's own production of cortisol which is highest first thing in the morning. Morning dosing helps the body start making its own cortisol again as we wean off prednisone, and taking too much at night or later in the day can also mess with sleep.

Problem: if taking the lot in the morning doesn't help much with pain on waking, what is the point of taking it? So some of us split the dose, taking most in the morning and a smaller amount later in the day or evening. For me, that has taken away morning pain while trying to keep most of the dose in the morning where it belongs.

I'm currently taking 7mg a day - 5mg morning (10am) and 2mg with the evening meal (6.30pm), with pain-free mornings. Tomorrow's reduction will trim .5mg from the evening dose.

Everyone is different, but you may find that splitting your daily dose with a small afternoon/evening dose will fix the morning pain without messing too much with our body's resumption of cortisol production as prednisone is reduced.

I agree with @megz

When I was first diagnosed with PMR -- pain would wake me up in the middle of the night between 3 and 4 A.M. I had no need for an alarm clock. I was up the rest of the night in pain so that was my "A.M dose." The pain relieving effect of prednisone takes about 2 hours so by 6 a.m. I didn't have as much pain and felt better.

I then discovered it was much better when I split my dose but not half and half. What worked for me was 2/3 of a dose whenever I woke up in the morning. The remaining 1/3 of my dose was in the evening. When I took the smaller part of my dose anytime between 6 and 8 P.M. I didn't have any pain during the night. That was nice because I slept the entire night and woke up without pain anytime between 6 and 8 A.M.

When I got down to a lower dose and sleeping better after many years, I just tapered down my evening dose first until I didn't need an evening dose anymore. That way I ended up with my entire dose in the morning. Assuming I slept the entire night without pain I gradually got back to one morning dose between 6 and 8 A.M.

Ask your doctor what they think. I would always tell my doctor what I was doing but sometimes I didn't want to bother them. I did what worked the best for me.