[mausmish]

My mother has been on Prednisone for 16 years for polymyalgia rheumatica (pmr). The rheumatologist keeps insisting that she needs to try to get down below 5 mg. but anything below 10 mg. her caregivers (my niece, my sister, and I) notice a big decline in her quality of life, even when tapering at 1 mg per month. She becomes weak, tired, and achy. She has fallen several times and never broken any bones - her bone density is fine. We encourage her to stay on 10 regardless of what the doctor says. She is 89-1/2 years old.