@pb50
Does a moderate dose and fast taper of prednisone result in remission of RA flares? I used to do something similar for flares of reactive arthritis. Usually I took about 25 mg and tapered off prednisone again in less than a month.

Flares of uveitis were different and involved higher doses ... up to 100 mg of prednisone. I had to taper quickly down to the 20 - 30 mg range. I was higher than a kite on 100 mg of prednisone. I wasn't ever psychotic but I felt weird and could NOT sleep. People around me would ask me how much prednisone I was taking. My ophthalmologist didn't want me to feel too good and wanted me to taper lower as soon as I could. It would take me about 2 months to taper back to 0 mg when treating uveitis.

My PMR diagnosis was delayed by nearly a year. Prednisone was being restricted even though I was begging doctors to prescribe it to me. I was told repeatedly that reactive arthritis wasn't treated with long term prednisone. Suddenly one day I was told I had PMR and I would be on prednisone for at least a year. A asked what happened to reactive arthritis and the reply was that it was still there. Then my rheumatologist said, "It was unfortunate but now I had both reactive arthritis and PMR.

I never could taper off prednisone after that. My PMR starting dose was 40 mg. I remember at one stage being on 30 mg and my rheumatolgist checked my inflammation markers. She was amazed that my inflammation markers were still high on 30 mg of prednisone and told me to increase my dose to 35 mg.

I had a "built in" inflammation alarm so I knew exactly when my inflammation levels were too high. Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) would flare up and the electric zaps to my face were excruciating. There was no limit to how much I increased my prednisone dose for TN. I messaged my PCP once that I was having 1,000 zaps per day and said I wanted to take 100 mg of prednisone again. He called me back as soon as he got my message and asked me if I was sure 100 mg would be enough.