Ouch! What the heck is going on?! (prednisone pros please help)

So this is my 3rd week on 40mg and 3 days ago got to taper down to 30mg. Woke up with knee/ankle pain yesterday morning. Was pretty bad but went away after a few hours. Last night (Saturday night) I woke up at 1am with the same pain and fell asleep finally at 430am only to wake at 530am with EXTREME pain in my knees/legs!! I could barely walk!! I usually don't take my pred till around 10am but went ahead and took it at 6am and the pain has subsided. Is this normal? Should I spread my dosage throughout the day? Usually I take it all at once early in the morning but maybe it is wearing off by overnight? Didn't have any of this at 40mg. I really need help. I can't believe how bad the joint pain is from this! Any help is greatly appreciated

From what others have said on the forum I think this is normal for a pred taper. I was lucky and didn't experience this. Some feel that the drop of 10 mg is too much. I think I went down 10 mg from 40mg and then another 10mg to 20mg but then only when down 5mg at a time after that. Others go down 5mg or even 2.5 mg. Regardless of how you do it...it stinks.

Can I take my 30mg throughout the day? Like at 6am noon and 6pm? Or is it better to take all at once

yep, same here -take it all as early as you can, with lots of food.
Prednisone is fun for the first day, then it gets ugly fast!
Try to be mindful of how you interact with people and watch that temper!
More on topic, yea there will be some joint paint and I've had extreme Pancreatitis, which is the worst pain I've ever felt!
They key with prednisone, is to get things under control, then concentrate on getting off the pred.

I was told that splitting the dose does not help, if anything it's more mental then anything else. I suggest a slower taper, I'd never do a 10mg drop. I'd had to do the slowest most gradual taper this round then any of my others. I started doing 5mg drops every 2 weeks but that was too much, so I only drop 2.5mg, I only do this for 4 days then I drop another 2.5mg then 10 days at that level, then start with another 2.5mg drop for 4 days. I've had extreme pain in my joints, to the point where I was in the ER getting morphine just to get me to sleep, then it was T3's every 4 hours.

Good luck with your taper, I know how badly you can want to be off it but slower is better.

I agree that the 10 mg taper seems extreme, but you weren't on it for that long.

I had terrible pain in my knees and ankles. I'm sorry to report it didn't go away till I started Remicade :(

I think prednisone is one of those drugs that'll cure one thing and mess up another, but very few doctors tell you that.