pain increased

Last two questions!  1) Yes!  2) If only!  Usually pain relief comes within a few hours/to 2 days after beginning Pred. It then increases, and if you are unlucky, increases and increases - that is why we all take Pred.

Your doctor reduced the Pred far too quickly.  Luckily he has seen his error and has put you up to 20mgs again.  Read the 'dead slow/nearly stop' posts on this forum - they seem to be the only reliable reduction plans available, and they work for nearly everyone.  

Your doctor, and later your rheumatologist, will both try and force you to reduce quicker - it doesn't work!!!!

Hope you are one of the lucky ones and have a short PMR journey.

Regards from C. 💐

First you have to 'contain the pain' remember the underliying 'problem' is still there. The steriods will reduce the pain considerable - at least by 70% within a few hours of starting. The return of any pain is either it's not enough at this time - so stay on the higher dose a little longer - or it's not PMR.

Deborah, I was also started on 20mg pred for a week by my gp in April.  It reduced my pain within a few days.  He then cut me back to 15mg and my pain started increasing.  He used this as a confirmation that I actually did have PMR.  Put me back to 20mg and referred me to a rheumatologist who kept me there for 3 mos.  I just started my taper to 17.5mg.  So far so good.  Plan to be on this dose for 1 month then cut back to 15 and stay there for another 2 months if all stays well.  Good luck.

Deborah, now he has upped your preds to 20mgs, stay on this dose for 6 weeks. I think maybe your problem was that he reduced you too soon, 3 weeks, and the dose of preds didn't have enough time to really get hold of all the inflamation and then jeep,it under control. To then err on the side of caution then reduce by 1 mgs every 6 weeks thereafter. When you get down to 10mgs then follow Eileen's dead slow and almost stop tapering method. But it is important that you get all the inflamation under control at every dose otherwise what could result is flares then upped preds which in the long run makes it harder for this condition to keep under control. Good luck, christina 

It is very typical.  You may be reducing too much to fast.  Most reduce by as high as 2.5mg every month to 6 weeks or 1mg (most common) per month or so.

Good luck