Possible flare up

[lonelysunrise]

Hi Folks. I was so happy to have been able to reduce to 3mgs daily three weeks ago having been on 3.5mgs for four months and 4mgs for five months! A few days ago, I started aching badly in my pelvic area and legs. Felt like I needed two new hips and had trouble walking. So yesterday, I went straight up to 5mgs and felt better straight away. Three questions please. Should I have increased gradually? Roughly how long should I stay on 5? Should I then decrease gradually or go straight back down to 3? Thank you in advance for any advice.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

You can stay in higher for up to 14 days with causing an issue, I would say between 7-10 is reasonable time to get inflammation back under control.

Creeping up may have done it, but usually better to do as you did.

Personally I would go back to 3.5mg not 3mg, as the lower dose is where you got into trouble last time. Give it another month or two and then maybe try again…are you using a slow taper plan…..as detailed here -

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

[PMRpro Ambassador]

No - increasing gradually never works well, you are always playing catch-up. Adding 5mg for a few days clears things out well and then you go back to the last good dose. That will be 3.5mg but I'd say that was absolutely borderline so don't risk lower than that for a while.

[piglette]

Much better to increase quickly even by 5mg and really hit the PMR on the head you can then reduce quickly back to just above the point where you had problems.