Posted , 4 users are following.
I have been reporting here on my being able to get away with skipping one day's dose weekly, then working my way toward only every other day at 5mg.
This was a very big step from the previous month's 5mg per day.
Since I often awoke in pain in the middle of the night following a skipped dose (then having to take 2mg just to get back to sleep), I've adjusted my dosing to 3mg taken daily, but taken late in the day for least disruption to my sleep, i.e. minimal symptoms (like ear-ache and severe shoulder pain) during the hours that were most problematic.
I've experienced some mild fatigue, but not too bad. And by now I seem to be rid of wrist-pain flareups, which previously resulted from lowered dosing.
Still dealing with ribcage pain, most noticeable when sneezing, but that is one of just a few remaining symptoms that are defining a minimum effective therapeutic range of prednisone.
I've had to moderate my exercise duration due to very cold weather, but still doing a minimum of one hour daily, combined time spent cycling and running, plus some light barbell lifting within my steadily-increasing range of motion and loading.
So in summary, it seems that a minimal dose, taken so as to target the most troublesome time of "day", is allowing me to taper at a faster rate these days.
For background info, it has been exactly two years since my pmr symptoms first came on intensely within a couple of days. I began treatment @15mg/day after a long three months, and reached 5-6mg some ten months ago. I was stuck at 5-6mg/day for many months but finally have broken free of the 5mg level and am feeling good, with quite-tolerable symptoms.
I will follow up with any more changes in my progress!
1 like, 3 replies
Lee-Colorado dan38655
Posted
I have been on this journey since Nov 2013 and have GCA. I start getting temple aches when my GCA starts acting up. I have no hesitation of going back to the previous full level when headaches occur and have twice.
I keep an excel spread sheet of my BP and pulse. I notice that my BP and HB increase moderately when ever I reduce my pred. It goes back to normal in a day or so. I purchased a wrist mounted Fitbit that monitors BP and helps me track sleep. I find that in the taper, my Heart Beat (HB) increases during first few days of an incremental drop. I also find that my sleep pattern is broken when ever I reduce. What works for me is to get out of bed, sit around for 30 min and then go back to sleep.
marygabel Lee-Colorado
Posted
dan38655 marygabel
Posted
I rarely find myself wanting to cut that small though, since the level of variation in my symptoms often has me making adjustments up or down that are a half or whole 1mg. I just don't think that such a level of precision is reaistically very useful.
I have of late been less consistent with my morning exercise, and although I usually make up for this later in the day, I am not able to maintain a dosage lower than 3.5mg/day and probably will not until the weather improves a bit.
I don't/won't allow my dosage to go so low as to have any night time symptoms of headache or ear ache, as I don't think that is safe to do, and that also just happens to be the same dosage where my "bursitis" joint symptoms also would become much worse, to the point of debilitation.
By the way, all of the prednisone pills I've seen were white, 1mg and 5mg same color.