By James Goodwin MD. The classic recommendation for initial treatment of temporal arteritis has been to commence with prednisone at a dosage of 40 to 80 mg/day, though 60 mg/day or above has been more commonly described than lower doses.f headache or other signs of temporal arteritis emerge during the course of polymyalgia rheumatica, however, it is important to increase the prednisone dosage to the levels recommended for initial treatment of temporal arteritis.