Yes ... you are right. The pain is hard to fight and it made me do things which I didn't want to do. Except for hydroxychloroquine, I took all the other medications you have listed at one time or another. My problem was I needed those medications in addition to higher doses of prednisone. Sulfasalazine was actually the very first medication I used for reactive arthritis and my rheumatologist wanted me to try it again after PMR was diagnosed.

My rheumatologist said if I could just stay on less than 5 mg of prednisone it would be okay. When Actemra got me off prednisone entirely, my rheumatologist was ecstatic. Now I just do a monthly infusion of Actemra and that is it ... no other medications to control pain. As an added bonus, I'm also off my blood pressure medications and several other medications used to treat prednisone side effects.

Are you sure you don't have inflammatory arthritis? There is no rule that says PMR and inflammatory arthritis can't coexist. It doesn't need to be PMR only or inflammatory arthritis only ... it can be both simultaneously. That might explain why you have full body arthritic pain and the swelling in your knees, ankles and hands continues. However, you are doing well to be on 1 mg of Prednisone except the inflammation might not be adequately controlled on that low of a dose.