Would you taper more?

Ok, so I've been on pred for almost three weeks now.  I did five days at 40mg, five days at 30mg, five days and 20mg, and I've been on 15mg for three days now.  I see my GI on Tuesday and the plan was for me to stay on 15mg until I see him again, but I'd really like to go ahead and drop down to 5 or 10mg on Sunday. 

I've had one to two absolutely non-urgent, well-formed BMs/day since the second or third day on pred.  I've had no symptoms return so far (perhaps a tiny bit of bleeding, but I really think it was my hemmies and not the UC), and I've been eating quite a bit of "challenging" high-fiber foods (raw veggies, berries, oatmeal, beans), which made the D worse when I was flaring. 

I called my GIs office to see what he thought about tapering, but he's on vacation right now.  His medical assistant thought it would be good for me to go ahead and taper more.

What do you all think?  Would you go ahead and taper more, and if so, would you go to 5 or 10mg? 

I think 10 sounds reasonable too fruitgirl. You have been stable for so long....but I am no doc. If you do it, let us know what happens. I have also been on pred for the first time (I think you said this was your first time too...pred virgins!) and I am interested in others experiences with it.

As for me, I am not completely back to normal yet. No blood and only going about two times per day but it is still pretty loose and I have very minor cramping. I am set to be on 20mg for another 6 doses and then stopping....a sudden stop as I have talked about in other threads. I hope it works for me.

What the heck! I typed out a reply, hit "submit," and got a "this link is broken" error message....grr!

Anyway, thanks, Joma and Peety, and yes, this is my first time on pred, too.

I am so grateful the pred worked so well. I haven't felt this good and had this much energy in ages. I went from being pregnant, to being an exhausted new mommy, to being a really sick new mommy! My son sleeps a 7-8 hour stretch at night now, so I'm well-rested, finally! Joma, I hope you can get off the pred soon and stay well. I was also breastfeeding my son, but lost my supply around 8 weeks, I suppose because I was so very sick my body just couldn't do it any more. It was really disappointing, but luckily, he made the switch to formula really easily.

Hi fruitgirl, I just finished with the 40 for 5 days, 30 for 5 days, 20 for 5 days and 10 for 5 days. Didn't have the bleeding but still was having a lot of bathroom visits. Today only 2 (that's a record) doing the 6MP, never did do 15 mg. Prednisone. So I guess 10 sounds good to me too, it's always hard to make the decision if you are doing the right thing or not...MollyMcB

     I'd try 10 too until you see your GI doctor.  If symptoms start to come back go up to 15 until u see him.

Wow, fast tappering to begin with and the 5 day switch is new to me too, I've always (by 4 different GI's) been instructed to start on 40mg/day for 2 weeks straight, tapper down 5mg each week after that until about 3 weeks left then told to taper by halves, like from 3 1/2 pills down to 3 (each for a full 7 days) then from 3 down to 2 1/2 pills until finally the last week I'm taking just 1/2 a pill for 7 days. It's quite important to taper slowly off of pred.

:)