Reducing prednisolone

[Tayzee]

I am trying to reduce from 7mg… I have been on 6mg yesterday and today and my legs have been ever so painful today… I’ve taken Zapain and this seems to help. My question is… do I keep reducing and take painkillers or go back up to 7mg again please?

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Could be steroid withdrawal as it came on so quickly…so maybe give it a few more days -.

This give details of difference between flare and steroid withdrawal -

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

Also might be sensible to try reducing by only 0.5mg and a slower taper, if you aren’t following one already - plenty to choose from here -

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

[PMRpro Ambassador]

If Zapain helps then it is very likely that it isn't the PMR itself. At this stage I feel that reducing a whole 1mg all at once is a lot and it could well be steroid withdrawal - your body protesting at too big a change in dose all at once. There are slowed tapering approaches to be found in the FAQs - just reducing 1/2mg at a time and slowing it down so you don't go from every day 7mg to every day 6mg as you seem to have done will probably help too. A basic rule we talk about a lot is that any reduction step should be at most 10% of the current dose and for many people even that is too much at these lowish doses.

If it were me, I would go back to 7mg for a few days and then do 1/2mg using one of the slowed tapers where you take the new dose just one day at a time to start with so your body doesn't notice as much.

[Tayzee in reply to PMRpro]

The Zapain lowers the intensity of the pain but doesn’t take it away completely 🤔

[Koalajane]

I see that a month ago you were asking about tapering from 5 to 2.5mg so what dose have you been on since then?

[Tayzee in reply to Koalajane]

I went to 7 because I had pain at 5mg …

[Koalajane]

So you didn’t try the 5 to 2.5mg I hooe

[Tayzee in reply to Koalajane]

No I didn’t … I was just feeling desperate to lower the dose but wasn’t stupid enough to try it out 😊

[Littlestag]

I got stuck at 7 for four months then eventually got down to 6. Now doing slow slow incredibly slow taper and reducing by half. Now at 5/4 1/2. Going well.