Originally Posted by
Sangye
No one can say whether or not you can get off pred completely. You can only find out by trying.
There are 3 ways to taper pred:
1) Same dose each day and taper it. (eg 5mg every day, then taper it to 4mg a day every day....)
2) Alternating zero pred days (eg Monday 5mg, Tuesday 0mg, Wed 5 mg....)
3) Alternating dosage days (eg Monday 5mg, Tues 4mg, Wed 5mg.....)
I don't think your current taper is the slowest way at all. You could try alternating 5mg/4mg if 5/3/5 is giving you trouble. If you've been on pred for longer than the initial 3-6 months, you might have to drop 1mg a month to get below 5mg. To get from 5mg to 2.5mg I had to taper by 1/4 mg every week or so. Sometimes I had to hang out at a new dose for a couple weeks. So I was generally tapering by 1mg a month but I couldn't tolerate dropping it the entire 1mg at a time.
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