Flare and pred

[Mumdadlove]

Good afternoon all, another hot one, advice again please after my post a couple of days ago, I upped the pred to 17 and a half, felt slight better but by yesterday evening felt awful, woke 2am really bad forehead headache, base of neck and just generally not well, decided at 2am to take 20mg of pred having learnt from here that that is the time the inflammation levels drop, I take coated pred and by the time I woke up felt a lot better, the hospital phoned regarding my steroid injections on Friday and after speaking with the consultant have agreed can all go ahead for Friday on the higher dose of pred

My question is when and can I drop down to 12 and half(have been on this dose for a couple of months) without having to taper again? My biggest upset here is that a lot of this could be to do with my neck and not necessarily GCA which after the injections will hopefully defer between the two, I can’t remember the name of the muscle but it begins with an S, and can cause similar symptoms, I am under Rod Hughes and a very good orthopaedic team and likewise think it could be either, I was so happy to get down to 12 and a half and could see light at the end of the tunnel(well going in the right direction at least) Thank you for reading and as always your advice

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Under the flare protocol you can stay on increased for up to 14 days without having to taper back down in the normal way..

However, we do sometimes suggest an interim stop [around half of increased dose] for around 5 days.. just as a safety brake. In your case I'd suggest stopping at 16 or 17mg and then down to 13mg rather than 12.5mg.

Once you are settled and sure everything under control at 13mg then commence normal tapering.

[Mumdadlove in reply to DorsetLady]

Thank you so much, I did think this but just needed it in black and white, will do the interim, see how I feel after the injections, it’s so hard to work out is it the condition, the tapering, withdrawal, have learnt so much from you all, pretty much left on our own as far as the medical side of it is concerned, thank you again!

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer in reply to Mumdadlove]

No probs..,

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Sternocleidomastoid??

And I was going to say what DL already has.

[Mumdadlove in reply to PMRpro]

That’s the one, thank you!