Increasing dose to clear last little bit of inflammation

[Northernarcher]

Hi web on Pred since Mat this year tapered from 15 to 8 with no real side effects apart from fatigue about 10-12 days in for a couple of days however I still have a little inflammation in the soles of my feet and was wondering if it would be worth increasing my Pred back to 15 for say 5 days to try and clear this last little bit then go back to 8 and continue my taper any advice welcome

[PMRpro Ambassador]

I assume you mean that you still have some soreness in your feet? How do you know it is inflammation due to PMR?

But I think you are misunderstanding the nature of PMR. It isn't an acute problem - one big batch of inflammation, clear it all out with pred and then taper off the pred. It is chronic and every morning a small dripping tap of inflammation sends out a new batch of inflammatory substances around the body where they look for somewhere to attack. Initially you use a biggish dose of pred to springclean any built up inflammation in the places that hurt most. Then you taper that dose down to find the lowest effective dose, the lowest dose that gives the same result as the starting dose did. That lowest dose is the amount that combats the daily batch of inflammation so it doesn't build up again.

Increasing your daily dose for a few days might improve your sore feet but if what has happened is that you have gone to too low a dose to manage the overall inflammation, then it will just come back. The pred is just to deal with the PMR inflammation - so it depends what is causing your sore feet. Was it part of your PMR at the start? Did it go away and return at a lower dose? Is it completely new? Where is it? Could it be plantar fasciitis? Or another tendinitis?

[Northernarcher in reply to PMRpro]

Many thanks for your reply the inflammation is in the soles of both feet it has been there all the time and has neither increased as I tapered nor decreased as I tapered I have just changed the time of day that I take Pred from after breakfast (around 10am) to 3am in the morning with some yogurt so maybe I will see if a change in time helps before trying an increased dose

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Northernarcher]

If it has been there all along and hasn't changed one way or the other, I doubt adding pred now will make much difference.

[Northernarcher in reply to PMRpro]

Hi sorry for my tardy thanks understand PMR a bit better now will check with GP see what he thinks

Once again thanks

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to Northernarcher]

No need to apologise - people have other things to do between sessions on the forum!!