prednisone-

Standard course is to start at 40mg and taper down by 5mg a week. For the last 10mg you may want to go more slowly if symptoms start to return, but personally my advice is to just do the standard taper and not linger. It's not a med you want to be on for longer than absolutely necessary.

Yeah, you can do a faster taper if you want! For some conditions like asthma, only a very short burst of Pred is given, for about a week. But that would be far too short for most Crohn's flare-ups, unfortunately. A high dose is usually required to bring the flare-up under control and you don't want to be dropping down too suddenly from 40mg, because you'll feel it and it won't be pleasant.

But you could try starting off at 30mg and see how you get on with that. Or you could drop by 10mg a week from 40 to 20mg, but for the last 20mg you should go slower. It may sound a bit counterintuitive, but withdrawal symptoms are more likely to kick in at the lower doses. Probably because you are reducing by a proportionately larger amount each time, ie 35mg is 7/8ths of 40mg but 5mg is 1/2 of 10mg.

I had a very short taper in April (8 day dose pack). I don't think it helped at all. I just found out my anemia levels are trending downward again.....I don't think I have ever gotten out of this flare that started in April. I just felt a little better since I had an iron infusion. So, my advice is either don't do prednisone at all or do it long enough for it to be effective. (just my two cents)

I started flaring a little bit in the beginning of my pregnancy because I got dehydrated from lots of morning sickness. I went on 20 mg then dropped 5 mg every 5 or so days. It helped.....then I flared again a month later, for the same reason and getting an ear infection plus antibiotics. So I would say if you're in the very beginning stages it might help to just try the small amount rather than waiting to see if it gets worse and having to do a large amount. Just my thoughts.