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PMR Taper and pain

Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: May 30 12:19pm | Replies (63)
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@dadcue

There is no gold standard for tapering off prednisone. This video gives reasonable "guidelines" to follow.


Nobody knows the best way for everyone to taper off prednisone treatment for PMR.

I'm happy this doctor mentioned concomitant inflammatory arthritis. She also mentions twice a day or "split" (BID) dosing.

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Replies to "There is no gold standard for tapering off prednisone. This video gives reasonable "guidelines" to follow...."
jabrown0407 | @jabrown0407 | Jan 19 6:08pm

I discussed tapering at length with my doctor and did plenty of online research. What I discovered is a lot of the tapering exercise is about getting you adrenal glands to kick back in as well as concern over your PMR returning. Somehow I believe these are co-related but I have no basis for this opinion. My research told me that the problems with the reactivation of the adrenal glands seem to rear up around the 4-6mg of steroid range. Once I hit the 4mg per day range I started shortening my time on a single dosage and I also went down slowly between dosages. I moved from 4 to 3 by doing 3.5mg/day for 4 days, then did 3mg for only 17 days. I continued to reduce the time at each dosage level by 2-4 day. This reduced my tapering time significantly. My Rheumy permitted me to define my own schedule but I had to commit to returning to 5mg and contacting her as soon as any pain returned.

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nancy53 | @nancy53 | Jan 21 7:33am

Thank you for posting this.

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