Hiya. I'm now 10 months since my diagnoses of PMR and the same on Pred. I started at 15mg, and have reduced fairly succesfully to 10mg (slight achy shoulder/clavicle on right side that's not too intrusive and liveable with exercise and paracetamol). I have dropped to 9.5mg after 2 months at 10mg by 9 aand 10mg on alternate days. I have found that the ache has spread to my left shoulder/clavicle and neck and I feel I should address it. If I up my dose, should I just pop back to 10mg for a while or would a slightly higher dose be useful? Thanks for any help.
you could try 10 again to see if it settles,if it doesn't you can easily go up again, ..it does sound though that you were still having discomfort at 10 if so go up again. It's far better to keep on top of the pain than to let it niggle on.Your body will let you know when you are ready to drop again.hope this helps and you get your pain under control again soon
10mg can be a problem point. A group of doctors in Bristol suggested that you should stay on 10mg for a year. I am not sure I have come across anyone who has stayed on that dose that long, but below 10mg can be harder when reducing and you need to take it slowly. You should go back to the dose where you last felt comfortable. Once PMR crawls out it is difficult, if not impossible to put it back in its box without increasing the pred.
Probably - you sound to be around the borderline of what you are looking for - the lowest dose that gives you the same result as the starting dose. As the others have said, you are risking the inflammation building up again and then you could easily tip over into a flare which would probably mean starting over again at this stage. If 10 works no need to go back but of not then a week at a higher doses and then a speedy return to 10mg might work. It doesn't mean you won't get lower - just not yet.
You'll find a very slow reduction approach in the replies of this thread:
and a load of reading that you might find useful/interesting in the first post. A lot of people have used this reduction or something similar to get lower than ever before so it is worth considering. It is also being used in a clinical study in the north of England.