1. < Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR)

Tapering from 1mg prednisone

Posted by abi @abi, Mar 6, 2023

I was given prednisone for GCA diagnosis in June 2022.
My rhumatologist has directed my drops in dosage by 1mg every 2 weeks until I reached my 5mg dose. At 5mg she recommended I drop
dosage by 1mg every 3 weeks until reaching zero. I have seen your reference to the UK site and see their fear of dropping too fast.
I am presently at 1mg every 3 weeks.

I am doing that but now am at 1mg and know you and other sites (UK site) recommend a much slower drop. I expressed my concern to her and she suggested considering .5mg drop every 3 weeks, which she left up to my discretion. Can anyone share their experience with the drop from the 1mg dosage in regards to symptoms, etc.?

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Mentor
John, Volunteer Mentor | @johnbishop | Mar 6, 2023

@abi, My experience with 2 occurrences of PMR - The first occurrence it took 3 and half years for me to go from 20 mg to zero. The last six months I went back and forth between 1 mg and 1/2 mg until I was able to taper off with little to no morning pain (0 or 1 on my pain scale). My second occurrence of PMR was 6 years later and it took me a 1 and a half years to taper from 20 mg to 0. The second time around I had made some lifestyle changes which allowed me to taper faster and I was able to go from 1 to 0 on my last taper with little to no morning pain. The lifestyle changes I made was more daily exercise without over doing it, losing weight by eliminating processed foods and sugar (as much as I could 🙂) and trying to eliminate inflammatory foods.

My tapering was normally monthly for the bigger drops at the beginning and then every 2 weeks for the smaller tapers toward the end. Everyone is different but it's good to hear your rheumatologist is working with you.

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