I would like some advice, I have had PMR for 3 years and struggled to reduce my pred and for now I am at 1 1/2 mg a day.
My question is regarding my wife. She has a rash on her face and the triage nurse today at the doctors has put her on 30mg a day of prednisolone for 6 days and no taper. I am horrified at this large amount knowing how hard I have struggled to reduce my dosage. It seems she may have an allergy to to what we are not sure.
Is it possible to take this dose for 6 days and simply stop?
I realise this question has nothing to do with PMR but I know you have a wealth of knowledge regarding Prednisolone and wonder if you might have a comment.
Hopefully someone can offer an opinion.
many thanks
Paintpots
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It is possible to just take a short course even at that dose and still just stop. It isn't long enough to affect adrenal function and whatever she has is not a chronic condition - part of your problem is that PMR goes on and on ...
Thank you PMR Pro. I was so worried that she might not be able to come off them. Hopefully they will clear her rash.I thought you good souls might have the answer for me.
If you start to get aches and pains whilst on a low dose (say 2mg) of steroid for PMR, is it therefore OK to take a high dose (say 15mg) for say 4-5 days (and then stop) in order to see if it is efficacious and if so does this mean that the aches and pains are a recurrence of the PMR??
IF you think you are having a flare -then this contains link details of how to deal with it -and going up to 15mg is OTT if normal dose is around 2 or 3mg -
However not every ache pain is PMR -at such low doses it could be adrenals struggling - it’s a side effect as well as fatigue - or just the normal aches of life which are masked at higher doses of Pred.
As much as 15mg if you are that low is probably a bit OTT - we recommend adding 5mg to the dose at which you are flaring, PMR happens to be pred-responsive but there are other things that improve on pred too, including OA and adrenal problems, The latter would also improve quickly with 15mg pred - but that isn't the answer, In the case of adrenal insufficiency, sticking it out is the only way to go to wake up those adrenals.
A few years ago when I was tapering and down to 7mgs pred I developed a similar rash to your wife and doc prescribed a short course of pred (25mgs for a week I think). After the week I was able to resume my slow taper with no issues.
when my GP tried me on Pred he gave me 20mg for 5 days reducing y 5mg each day to zero. He was testing my response for PMR, but the taper may be interesting to you.
Not that this has to do with your wife's condition but after my PMR went into remission I developed adrenal insufficiency. About a year later I was put back on a high dose of steroids for 1 week for a lung infection and told I could stop it immediately and go back to my extremely low steroid dose that I had to take for adrenal insufficiency. While I didn't have an adrenal crisis I almost did. So at least in my case I refuse to stop taking steroids abruptly. And my rheumatologist agrees with me. I simply have to taper. But I don't have to taper it slowly as I did with PMR. Your wife needs to be cognizant of the way she feels after she stops the pred and Report any adverse feelings to her doctor immediately.
Thanks everybody for your informative comments, I will bear them in mind as my wife gets to the end of her course, I have some spare Pred if I think she needs to taper for a week.
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Reducing pred dosis on same day as flu shot a good idea?
PMR and MS
Is this a flare ? 
Now I understand my Rhumie
Side effects 
