Prednisone 15mg
Posted , 11 users are following.
I began on Prednisone last Saturday and thought I had found a miracle cure for what I have been recently diagnosed with - PMR. I had such low pain on Saturday evening it was amazing. However since then the pain has increased again thought maybe not quite to the levels it was at. I am seeing the doctor this afternoon but wondered if others gave experienced this. Would it suggest that I would need a slightly higher dose than 15 mg to start with. As I say it seemed to work amazingly for the first day then didn't seem to work as effectively after that.
0 likes, 17 replies
Daniel1143 joanne2000
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Diana112 joanne2000
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joanne2000 Diana112
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Thank you for your reply. I didn't do anything strenuous just everyday activities on the Saturday I just felt so much better but since then there I seem to have gone back to almost square one again. I came off Naproxen and am trying to manage without any further pain relief as I have read that Prednisone should do the trick if the dosage is correct. I am still awaiting final confirmation that I indeed do have PMR but blood results apparently suggest it. Still in quite a bit of pain but I will see what the doctor says later and whether she suggests I increase the dosage of Prednisone.
Diana112 joanne2000
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It sounds a bit of both, 'normal' everyday activities are something you will need to ration but perhaps a slightly higher dose of pred to bring the inflammation under control initially is also required. Good luck.
Nefret joanne2000
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The accepted starting dose is usually 15mg - 20mg so you have been started at the lower end of the scale, however it will settle given a little time. You need to be stabilised and comfortable for a few weeks before you can think about reducing the steroid dose.
joanne2000 Nefret
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Thank you.
I suspect I haven't been given enough as I had so much relief the first day then hardly any to be honest since then. I even managed to put my socks on without sitting down or bending over in pain! Now I am struggling again. It is so useful getting feedback from others who have gone through this!
diana21296 joanne2000
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nick67069 joanne2000
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Usuall first dose for PMR is between 15 and 25mg. I have started at 15mg as well. It took a week before pred worked for me. Although you feel better immediatelly, at low dose it may take longer for the full impact. I have read many stories here that you feel "cured" immediatelly and was quite disapointed that it did not happened to me. However, gradually after a week or so, things looked much better. Besides, when you start reduction, you have head start, since you are already at 15, while some have to start from 20 or 25mg
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If there is no releife after a week or 10 days, then I would worry that it may not be PMR.
greentea26 joanne2000
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I started on 20mg and experiend relief almost immediately. At first t felt like complete relief but I think that after the first few days some of the symptoms crept back in again - though it stil felt like a miracle.
However the niggles creeping back in were extemely minor - I'd hardly even describe them as pain.
Maybe 15 is not enough for you?
donna25417 joanne2000
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EileenH joanne2000
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No doubt you went and started to catch up on all the things you haven't been able to do? "Just everyday activities" is too much for your muscles to cope with.
The pred just manages the inflammation an underlying autoimmune disorder is causing: your immune system is haywire and attacking your body in error, thinking it is a foreign thing like bacteria or viruses. That damages the tissues and causes inflammation - and that carries on in the background despite the pred and makes you still feel unwell/fatigued. The muscles are intolerant of acute exercise and you suffer Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) with even relatively small amounts of activities. You will be able to do more if you build it up slowly - but it does mean starting with very little and adding just a few minutes every few days with rest periods in between. I've had PMR a long time and am well managed on the dose of pred I take but using the vacuum cleaner or scrubbing a small area of floor leaves me exhausted and aching if I am not very careful.
You may well not get 100% relief as Nefret says. That first day FEELS fantastic, but it probably was just relative to how you felt the previous day! And 15mg is the bottom end of the range of doses now recommended - a study in Italy some years ago showed that 75% of patients got a good result in a month with a starting dose of 12.5mg. That worked best for small women - larger men were slower to respond. People responded faster on higher doses. Be patient - and rest!
joanne2000 EileenH
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It is so hard. I am only 48 years old and work so can't really sit still all day. I have two dogs that need walking and my husband works abroad most of the time so isn't around. I am still in the experimental stage of Prednisone and was only prescribed them last Friday. Apart from this forum I haven't had any advice as to what I should or shouldn't be doing in terms of activity. I don't want to run a marathon but would like to get up, go to work come home, cook a meal and household chores without extreme pain. I am so grateful for the amazing advice though and so glad I found this site
EileenH joanne2000
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We all would have - I was still only 51 when it started but luckily I was a freelance translator and only had to fall out of bed (literally) and crawl to the computer. I couldn't have done a "proper" job that involved a commute - I would have been finished before I got there! I crawled up stairs on hands and knees and while that improved dramatically once on pred I still couldn't walk far because of the hip bursitis.
This is a whole new ball-game and believe me it is something almost all of us had to face. Many of us were the go-to person in the family, the ones who did it all - and suddenly we couldn't. Unfortunately many doctors seem to think that once you are on pred everything is back to normal - no it isn't. The reality is rather different! And pred can make you a different person too - short-tempered and emotional amongst other things. It often causes brain-fog - as if PMR didn't manage that all on its own. Working in certain situations becomes difficult - I won't say impossible, but much harder.
Why not advertise and see if you can find a dog-walker to help a bit? I know several people who would love a dog but due to age or other circumstances can't - so they "share" their friends' dogs and help with walking.
I do next to no housework - the house is reasonably tidy, the ironing board stays up unless we have visitors and when it is all too bad we get cleaning person in. Just washing the kitchen floor or changing the bedding is about as much as I can manage. I do realise that with dogs it is rather different - but getting someone to do the heaviest stuff will make a big difference.
Cooking a meal? If I can't do it in 20 mins I lose interest. I eat tons of salad and raw veg - minimal prep time! I live in Italy - I cook meat like Italians - good quality and hot frying pan, meat in, 2 mins, turn, 2 mins, on the plate! Ready prepared veg may seem a luxury but it saves your hands - not something I can get here, not the land of the ready-meal I'm afraid! Except take-away pizza...
You do learn how to manage and accommodate PMR - but it doesn't come overnight!
joanne2000 EileenH
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Can I ask - what are your symptoms of hip bursitis? My groin, mainly on one side but some pain on the other too, is really sore and is along the adductor muscle - I can actually press on it and it is sore - so bad in the morning I can hardly walk. I don't know if the problem with my shoulder is linked to my groin yet. My ESR is high - at 43 - which led the doctor to suggest PMR but I am now being referred to a Rheumatologist to get a confirmed diagnosis and for him to look into the diagnosis.
EileenH joanne2000
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I get pain in the groin and also on the outside of my hip. It hurts when standing from sitting and gets worse with walking or stairs. I couldn't lie on my side, especially on a hard surface. This is a good description:
https://patient.info/health/greater-trochanteric-pain-syndrome
Anhaga joanne2000
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Joanne, I looked at your list and I thought, household chores have to go. Don't do any more than the essentials. No spring cleaning! Some weekly chores can be done less often. I've recently discovered a fantastic healthy locally grown and prepared (washed and cut up brassicas) salad mix at the market. That's half of supper all ready!
And at work your workmates need to know you are ill. Because you don't have a cast or other evidence of disability they won't know or understand, but you need to know you have to treat yourself as gently as if you were recovering from a bad flu or something like that and it doesn't hurt to educate others about your condition if you feel comfortable doing so.
After I adjusted to my new normal I found it worked best if I scheduled one activity a day, and an equal amount of rest. As you work this is not really possible, but take what time you can. If you are one who tends to skip breaks or socialize during meal breaks it may, for a while anyway, be a good idea to use these times for quiet time for yourself. Even jovial company I've found can be exhausting!
I was still working for about six months after PMR symptoms developed (I didn't know what it was) so I don't know what it would be like to work while on pred, but I suspect it would be harder because although pred gives us back our lives in terms of alleviating the pain and disability it does have other effects on us. I gather from other comments on the forum that most people feel PMR gives them fatigue. Truthfully I had no issues with fatigue until tapering to about 7 mg pred, but I did have to learn to pace myself even before that. It's not easy. The PMR personality seems to be one that likes to be active and do lots of things and feels guilty if just chilling. Can you find a way to exercise your dogs which doesn't require you to be galloping along? A park where they are allowed to run free if they will reliably stay near you and always come to you when called, while you rest on a bench?