I was prescribed 20mg a day for 5 days of prednisone. What happens if I take one dose only?

Any steroid you are prescribed are to reduce inflammation due to infection, irritation etc so the drugs aim is not to cure anything but to reduce chronic or acute inflammation so you’re body’s own defenses can cure itself thus I would say that if you only took 1 of the 5 pills prescribed to reduce the inflammation then that would be not recommended.

Basically if you don’t get it all with the high dosage initially then fewer will be wasted.

This is a low dose of steroids to begin with. You should probably ad more info to myself as my background in anti inflammatory medications are extensive