Bruising, cuts that don't heal

Aloe Vera is great for burns too. I always keep a plant in the kitchen

I will go to the nursery to get a plant.

I don't know where you live but Aloe is sort of tropical.  Just put

one plant in the ground and it will drop "babies" endlessly

However if you are like me and don't have a green thumb even

though I live in FL, you can buy all sorts of aloe products

at a health food store and sure Amazon has some capsules

that you can just break open and apply to cut or burn.  Aloe

is wonderful for sunburn....

Hi Faye,  I live in Sarasota/Bradenton so  I could easily do that, and I will.  I know you live in Titusville.  Audrey lives in Longwood and talked of uis PMRers meeting perhaps in Orlando, which is quite a distance.  Judy20492 lives in the Villages south of Ocala.  It would be great if some ofu s could get togethier every so often, too bad we are not closer.  Thanks for the info!  Hope you are doing well.  I'm tapering and nextweek will be 10/5, but I'm going to do 10/7.5 so I don't flare.  Elinor

From 10mg it is recommended you reduce not more than 1mg at a time. You are bound to be getting to the region of your longer term dose and also the percentage drop is rising. Top US experts have advised for a long time that in PMR dose reductions shouldn't be more than 10% of the current dose - that's 1mg at 10mg, only 1/2mg by the time you get to 5mg. 

Reducing pred in PMR is very different from reducing pred in a simple taper for an RA flare. Maybe that is what confuses so many doctors...

Eileen, I know about the 10% only reduction. Right now I'm at the 2.5 to 2.25 stage so any  reduction now is more than 10% . . . though I'm going snail-like and it's fine so far  (3yrs. 9 months into this delightful trip . . .).  J

That's the whole point of the "Dead slow and nearly stop" approach. You don't have to take the same dose every day - if you introduce the new lower dose just one day at a time it seems very often to fool your body: at worst you only feel "strange" for one day at a time and after a few offerings your body decides it isn't that bad, it'll be back to normal tomorrow so why worry about it.

I have to admit, if I'd got to 2.5mg I'd probably say, that's fine and stick...

Thanks Eileen, I am  doing your 'dead slow' method and so far I'm grand. Re. staying at 2.5 I've seriously thought about it. The only problems is that my bones are in a pretty bad place and I feel that ANY dose of Pred. will not help. That's my main concern . . .    T

It is said there is a bit of fall off of bone density even at 3mg so perhaps you are right. I need to get a dexascan done again, must be 2 years since the last - but at that point I'd had no change after 4 years of pred, mostly above 10mg with a fair time well above 10mg. On the other hand - what I don't know...

Hi Juno, Unfortunately bones can be affected at very low doses.  I won't look for it now, but I did read about research that shows some effect as low as 2.5 and at that point they hadn't looked to see if the effect continued at even lower levels.  I think the implication was that it might.  That's one of several reasons I've been doing so many other things to protect my bones, hoping to counteract the pred.  

Well it seems that your bones have done really well so far. My father took steroids for over 35 years as he suffered from RA as they were the magic treatment then (like Bisphosphonates are now for OP). H had no bone problems. So there, you may find you just have the to-be-expected 1% yearly bone-loss and no more. . . . 

For the past 2 years I've been juggling Pred. for the PMR with Forteo to protect and improve  the bones . . . . I'm hoping that when the Pred. is stopped  (IF it can be) that there may be some natural improvement in.  T 

Hi Anhaga, well onwards and downwards, we'll go !!  Thanks for that. J

Juno, you may have inherited some good bone genes from your father. 

Always the positibe attitude Anhaga!  Thank you,  Hopefully you're right - I never even thought of that. Both PMR and RA are both autoimmune conditions.. . .   Still -4 spine T-score provokes some degree of concern . . . J

Look up COMB osteoporosis exercise on google.  Should take you to an interesting article.

Only about 40% of patients on pred suffer significant loss of bone density - the recommendation is that everyone likely to be on long term pred should have a dexascan done at a very early stage so you have a baseline. Otherwise there is no way at all you can say this bone-density loss was due to pred - or due to other factors. 

What really annoys me is that they dish out omeprazole like sweeties with never a squeak that it is even MORE likely to lead to loss of bone density than pred - it too should be monitored with dexascans but look how easy it is to get one done - NOT!