Posted by John on March 18, 1999 at 23:12:28:
In Reply to: Re: prednisone and muscle pain : taper dosage posted by pinksharkmark on March 18, 1999 at 13:40:17:
Hmmm ... interesting. I did 5 days at 80mg and HA stopped for the last 3 days; for the taper after carefully (I thought) reviewing the various advices I dropped to 60 mg yesterday and 50 today i.e. to taper off by 10mg per day (80 - 10). Problem is the HA came back last night - manageable with O2 and Imigran but I had hoped I was done with them this time.
Pinkshark your proposed taper sounds too long at too high a doseage - depending in part on your weight - and by reference to the bible (the information - sorry, fantastic information, put up on the site)- the author there says 7 days @ 80mg and then a rapid (I beleive he uses that word) taper over 6 days to zero - a reoccurance ideally should be addressed by a reintroduction of the Prednisone say every second day to a max of 140mg per week?
I was wondering how your prednisone treatment was holding up - not the least because I am on a similiar course.
Anyway I will be interested to read what others say about your proposed 18 day course - it is a nasty substance (unless it aborts a cycle with no comeback) - the 2 questions are what is a safe dosage including taper dosage of prednisone and, related, what is the preferred method to stop the monsters returning once we start to taper - or do we just start another course as has pinkshark. It may be that a 10mg stepdown is less severe than 20mg at a time?
Until I know that and depending on what happens tonight as a result of my 50mg level today I propose to step down 10mg per day.
Would be great to hear what DocGreg's thoughts are.