Good morning . Reduced my pred yesterday after a totally pain free three weeks . Down from 12 1/2 to 10. Woke up this morning with painful shoulders again . Should I go on the slow reduction plan or just reduce every other day .or stick with the pain to see if it settles down?
Thank you.
Is this the first day after the drop then? That COULD be steroid withdrawal pain - it happens as soon as your body didn't get its expected dose. IF it is, you would expect it to improve over a few days, week or so. If on the other hand it is because the new dose is not enough to manage the inflammation any more then the symptoms will increase day by day.
That is the idea of the slow reduction approach - you reduce the risk of returning pain being steroid withdrawal which makes the identification early. But it also makes it easier to identify the right dose - and there are no guarantees that it will be 10mg or less to start with.
If it were me, I would probably give it a day and see if tomorrow is better or worse. If it isn't better I would definitely go back to 12.5mg and try again more slowly. But then, I wouldn't have the problem, I wouldn't have attempted more than 1mg at a time anyway. It isn't a race and doing 1mg every couple of weeks (which you can if you don't have problems) is the same as 2mg per month - and a lot less uncomfortable.
Ditto to PMRpros reply. Drop from 12.5mg to 10mg too big in my opinion. Whilst 2.5mg drop might be fine on higher doses, you must remember that as you get lower on your dose, it (2.5) becomes bigger in percentage terms.
Mantra - "not more than 10% drop of your current dose at any one time". At 12.5 that's 1.5 not 2.5. If you can't do 10% exactly, then slightly lower is better than higher.
thank you for your replies ladies,Yes this is my first day of reduction.
sorry to be a pest,just havent got the hang of this yet.
Don't worry, we all take time to learn what's best for US.
When I did "overnight" drops on higher doses I felt grotty for 2 or 3 days, not necessarily original symptoms, but just not right, bit short tempered - almost pre-menstral. That's steroid withdrawal, which is why a slower taper is recommended. If you try just 1mg you may be perfectly okay.
Take care.
Takes most people more than a couple of attempts at reduction to "get the hang"! Don't feel you are being "a pest" - everyone has to start somewhere and that's why some oldies hang around to save reinventing the wheel on a monthly basis!
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