I am afraid the pain will never end.

Hang in there . The Kevzara has been very good for me. My guess, It took me abt 2-3 months to have the Kevzara kick in. I was at 8mg prednisone when I started. Was able to taper to “o” by 4 months.
Remember, a PMR flare may not be the same as prednisone withdrawal.
Believeeeeee.

Thank you very much for the positive feedback. I am so happy for your success !!❤️. I have felt in a complete vaccume through this.

Read every single message on this blog abt PMR.
It will give you insight to others journeys, some harder and some easier than yours.
You are not alone, ask everything you “think” of.
We are here for each other.

You never said how long you were on 20 or 15 mg of Prednisone and what else you might be fighting. If you read other posts you will discover others willing to stay on high doses to be pain free. Personally, I did not believe all my pain was caused be PMR so I resisted steroids since they mask symptoms. My Rheumy worked with me to give me steroid injections at pain centers, like my trochanter bursitis. In the end we were both right but I still believe for me it was not the wrong path. Maybe not the best path, just not wrong.
Please read up on every drug and supplement and the side effects because they are real and you are looking at long term. Also check out interactions with the drugs you are taking. You can use Drugs.com as a quality information site, then talk to your doctor before making the final decision. You are young to have PMR so you really need to focus on management and learning to listen to your body. So many of us have been successful, you can also.

Hang in there. Kevzara changed my life but it has been a slow process with ups and downs. I am currently on 1.5 mg after being on Kevzara for 9 months. I was at 13 mg when I started Kevzara. Some reductions were (relatively) easy. The more recent reductions are tiny - only .5 mg per month- and tough. What has helped me get through the tough times has been to adopt a positive mantra that I say to myself each day. It sounds corny, but it helps remind me of all the good things and people in my world.

Thank u so much for your input! I was on 15 -20 mg of Prednisone for four months.

I know the side effects r real. All too real and frightening.

Am I convinced that my pain is PMR? Yes. Or some related rheumatoid process. That said, I am not tied into anything other than getting out of pain and having a life back.

One thing I will say, is that my body reacts differently and much more severely to everything post having been hospitalized with COVID in 2020. That may or may not be related. We just don't have the testing to be clear on a lot of things. Again, thank you

Thank u so much. May I ask what u mean by "tough"? That it takes a while for your body to adjust to the lower dose or that u go into flare or that u just accept a new normal of ongoing pain?

Sorry my second reply was to another post. New to this thread thing. Lol

Not sure if I responded to your post or another but thank u!

I have gone into a flare twice. The flares are tough mentally, because they resulted in increasing the prednisone dosage (e.g. a reduction from 2.0 to 1.5, resulted in having to go back up to 2.5) so I can function. Currently, after 30 days at 2.5 and another 30 days at 2.0, I reduced the dose to 1.5 a few days ago. No pain so far, but really fatigued.