I did. I stopped all prednisone in June. I was on 20 mg for a few months and tapered to 5. That was the toughest, i spent many days in bed. Going down from 5 to 0 was not as difficult. I had side effects so I had no choice but to taper completely off. I will say 5 mg did not help at all.

It is so tricky and I do think that regardless you will have some side effects. My doctor told me to let her know when I am having a flare and they will do the medrol dose pack instead of going back on Prednisone long term. I took her up on that! Having RA is tuff! Good luck and best wishes!

I think you are going down in doses too fast. Maybe go from 7.5 to 7. Then stay on 7 for several months, then go to 6.5 etc. it will take a long time but that is how I have managed to go from 10 to 2.75. My RA doc has helped me go down in doses and we do it right after my Rituxan infusions. I was on 10-7 mgs for way too long. We do a Medrol Dose pack now if I get a bad flare instead of staying on Prednisone.

I’ve taken 15 mg prednisone for years and have gone down slowly to 12.5 mg over the past four months. Anything lower than that just isn’t worth it to me. I’ll take my chances.

Thanks Monica. What I actually did, was go from 7.5 to 6.25 for only about 2 weeks, for which I was fine... then I went down 5mg... So that was probably my problem, not staying at 6.25 long enough...