Good morning all.
I have been on a starter dose of prednisolone 15mg for three weeks which has made me feel absolutely amazing no aches or pains, reduced last Thursday to 12.5mg as instructed to by my GP started getting pains and stiffness in fingers also pain in my right hip this morning do I carry on taking 12.5mg or increase back up?
Give it another couple of days…it might be steroid withdrawal rather than too little a dose. See this to explain difference -
healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...
If no better by Tues or Wed I’d go back to 15mg - and get back on track. Although 15-12.5-10mg is in the guidelines - not everyone can manage it.
If you do need to go back up, then next time around reduce by 1mg a time -or if you have uncoated 2.5mg tabs cut them in half to give 1.25 - much easier on body. And tbh, even if it does prove to be steroid withdrawal I’d go down in smaller steps anyway.
If you don’t have 1mg tablets, then request from GP [you’ll need them anyway once you get to 10mg] and they also should be aware if you are struggling with the tapering you have been given. If you don’t tell them, they assume everything is okay when it’s not… and it is only a plan … needs to be amended to suit YOU and your PMR.
Thank you so much for your prompt response and advice, GP prescribed me 5mg and 1mg tablets so ok for cutting 1mg in half, will persevere as you suggested for a couple more days, I was told to reduce to 12mg after 3 weeks but I decided to do 12.5mg, fingers crossed 🤞
Okay… but just make sure it is SW… and whatever, go the 1mg route from now on…
The guidelines also say 3 week for reductions - but many of us ‘older’ hands think at least 4 weeks at each dose..
I fully understand why doctors want patients on Pred for the shortest time possible -don’t we all wish that]…and that’s fine when it works… but unfortunately it’s doesn’t always. So listen to your body- it will soon tell you if it’s not happy… 😊
Thanks again I will make sure it is SW. Do you mean reduce by 1mg in 3-4 weeks to 11.5 mg not 10mg.
If it doesn't settle - go back to 15mg and then 14, 13, 12 and so on. 2.5 is a big change in one step,
Whatever it turns out to be - smaller steps and preferably every 3-4 weeks.
Thank you again. You're a star.
sorry to hear you’re getting pains again. I was advised to decrease by no more than 10% of current dose by Rheumatologist and then to only reduce by 1mg every 4-6 weeks once on 10mg or lower.
I previously did the same as you ,as advised by GP, after 4 days on lower dose started with pains. After contacting GP I increased back to 15mg for two weeks and then started reducing by 1mg every fortnight, it did the trick. However I’m now down to 9mg and finding it very difficult to reduce. Spoke to rheumatologist who advised sticking at 9mg for 6 weeks as clearly PMR is lively!!
Hope this helps, good luck!!
Hi Blodders2, I personally would give it a couple of days to see if things calm down and if they don’t then go back up to 15mgs for a week or so to see if you can get back to pain free then drop by maybe 1mg for a week and see if that does the trick. Regards
just to add to the above. In my opinion snail pace reducing is the only way to go!! I reduced from 10mg to 2mg in a year but it came back so up to 10mg again and took two years to finally stop. Thankfully this worked for me, sorry probably not good news for you. Good luck
Prednisolone tapering
Stress and tapering -again
SWEATING PMR/GCA AND TAPERING
Tapering 
