After 2 years I'm on 2mg from 15. Feeling good almost as if I could stop pred now.
Can anyone advise how to make the next reduction? 2 to 1.5 is 25%. 2 one day 1.5 next? All advice/shared experience gratefully received. Thanks.
After 2 years I'm on 2mg from 15. Feeling good almost as if I could stop pred now.
Can anyone advise how to make the next reduction? 2 to 1.5 is 25%. 2 one day 1.5 next? All advice/shared experience gratefully received. Thanks.
Hi Legsy you are lucky I was on 4 and had to go back to 7 so good luck.
That was tough Harry. Hope you are back on track
I preferred this approach - healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...
There are other versions - healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...
Thanks DL. Method 2 looks good. Thinking of 1.5 for new dose but still concerned it's a 25% drop. You'd think they would make more dosage options. I'm grateful for your help.Legsy
Would be useful..a 1mg can be cut in 2 quite easily, but 4? Likely to end up with dust.
All you do is give it a go!
Good luck.
Perhaps the society could suggest to the pharma? They would stand to sell an increased volume if we could all taper more slowly and docs could recommend
Good idea...but some chance methinks!
Steroids are used for many other illnesses, and short term courses only - so doses below 1mg are probably usually only used in our illnesses.
The cost of 1mg steroid are pennies - small beer for big pharma.
I can cut 1mgm into 0.25, not perfect but ok, I use a little pill cutter with a blade inside.
My advice is to resist temptation!!! People have found that 1mg, even 1/2mg a day prevents relapses!And use one of the slowed tapers we go on about - doing each step several times if needed then you have the new dose just one day at a time and eventually your body is fooled into thinking it's fine!
Hi Legsy, I’ve been on 0.5mg now for several months although occasionally I start t get headaches and sore knees/shoulders/scalp so a few days on 1mg usually does the trick. You could try 1.5mg 1 day and 2mg the next or one of the more gradual methods? Funny but I don’t seem to get the same PMR symptoms as 20 months ago when I started all this? Let me know how you get on?
I've been trying to taper to zero from 2 mg for about four years now. With varying degrees of success. I had a brief (about three weeks) flirtation with zero this summer. Back at 2 now. I got to zero by doing each step of the dead slow nearly stop taper twice over, in .5 mg steps. So it took me a year. No one can say I went too fast. And I obviously still need a nearly vanishingly small dose of pred. I was actually okay at 1 mg, and at .5 mg. But no pred wasn't good enough, and now I can't get back to 1 mg again. I should add that I started pred in June 2015 at 15 mg and had a very uneventful taper to 3 by the end of the first year, and then to 2. I was tapering in .5 mg steps by then, and had used the dead slow method starting at 9 mg.
How exciting. I would go down by half a one mg tablet, then leave it six weeks and drop by another half and so on. There really is no hurry, you are on a harmless dose but it just maybe holding things together. In fact I’d be content on 2 mgs forever apparently it can safeguard against a relapse ( according to Prof. Dasgupta) The slow pace is also helpful to your Adrenal function that is having to do the work again.
Thanks SJ. You don't think .5 is too much?
I started at 15..went up to 20 ...then in two years made my way to 0. Not because I had a time limit though! I was fully prepared to go however long I had to. When I reached 2 I tapered by .5 (split a 1mg)...stayed until I felt good and tapered to 0 the same way.... .5 at a time. If I remember correctly (I’ve been lucky to be off for 2 years now) I stayed at those low levels for different times...I think I was at 1.5 for a month...1 for 3 weeks etc. Just stay until you feel good, you can always go back to 2. Just my experience! Good luck.🍀
Try half of a 2.5 mg tablet plus half of a 1 mg tablet --equals 1.75mg. But ask the pharmacist for flat tablets -- much easier to cut.
Great thinking thanks Bromley
Thats exactly what I do - and if I (or my pill cutter) ever cut the tablets a bit squint so that one bit is bigger than the other, I put them in separate little containers marked with the dosage they actually are, do the calculations and fit them into the reduction - which can actually be quite helpful as we start ‘inching down’ in such small increments. By using the accidental ‘miscuts’ I can reduce by 0.1mg sometimes😁... As someone in here said a while ago - It’s like a hobby - reducing pred🙄😂
Good to read your comments, as I am on the menacing attempt to go without Prednison,
I tapered to 3 mg, and felt so good, that I just
stopped taking anything, for 12 days now.
My rheum. Dr said, one year on steroids is enough, ( I was 10 months) he prescribed low dosis ones a week Methotrexate, well, I am certainly quite scared of my courage, and hope
not to pay dearly for it, ( Prednisone is always available!) with your great reporting I know
about with what dosis to start, ... (if all failed)
In my last telephone consultation with Prof Dasgupta, he said I was aiming for 2.5 mg and he might keep me on that for life.
Interesting. Was your attack especially severe Maisiek?