Tapering from 20mg to 15 mg

[jensen0518]

Well my journey continues with PMR

2/12 30 mg on prednisone

3/5 tapered to 20 mg

3/26 will go to 15 mg

Anybody had any effects when going to 15 mg so far I am feeling great I am trying to train for a 10 mile race on 5/5

Thanks everybody

[Soraya_PMR]

30mg is a relatively high dose to start for PMR, so that should have cleared out all the accumulated inflammation. You might manage that drop to 15 OK, there’s only one way to find out! The problem is if it doesn’t feel right, you’ll not know where ‘your level’ is, 16? 17? 18? 19?, so you’d have to go back up to 20 and try again more slowly.

Personally I had to go via 17.5, 16 to get to 15. My GP and rheumi instructions to do bigger drops just caused me pain, slower progress, and ultimately back up to where I started.

[SnazzyD]

Hello, well some will be fine and won’t be. Where you will be on the spectrum, who knows? You’ve been ok with the other drops but bear in mind 20 to 15mg is a 25% drop. Normally the safest drop is no more than 10%. Any withdrawal tends to occur within a few days and a flare due to uncontrolled inflammation can be a week or two later, sometimes more by all accounts.

The replies to previous posts were advising caution but it is clear your race is important to you and you are steaming ahead with that. Pred is giving you wings. I would suggest not reducing below 10mg before the race because even if it turns out you didn’t have PMR after all, your adrenal function will not be good and you would be flying too close to the sun.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

I - and many others - only ever started at 15mg. It has been the general starting dose for years. The only way to know how you will react is to try and see what happens.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Personally, like Soraya I would go to 17.5mg first, rather than straight to 15mg, particularly with a race on the horizon - but you won’t know until you try.

[Joydeck]

I took 8 weeks to drop from 20 to 15 mg pred, tapering at 1 mg intervals. I experienced just the one tapering flareup at 18 mg.

I took a further 12 weeks to drop from 15 to 10 mg pred, with again just the one flareup, at 12 mg.

For the most part, I was entirely free of PMR symptoms. I exercised plenty and still do at 7 mg, all of 11 months later.