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Are painful swollen hands and fingers a PMR flare?
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jul 4 1:54pm | Replies (158)Comment receiving replies
I will tell you what my Rheumy told me in December when i had had a long stretch of no flares, and only a low hum baseline of pain. I questioned whether we should dial back frequency of infusions or dial down dosage per kg. He said lets bring this up in March. When we’ve spent two years of tweaking to get here, I don’t really want to change anything.
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Because of traveling, I had my Actemra infusion yesterday after 7 weeks instead of 4 weeks. My CRP and ESR were checked prior to my Actemra infusion. While my pain wasn't that significant, my inflammatory markers were elevated. My inflammatory markers went from "negligible" to "significantly elevated" according to my rheumatologist --- the first increase in a couple of years.
I was never sure why we were still checking my inflammatory markers, Supposedly they aren't reliable when a person is on Actemra. My rheumatologist said my inflammation markers are still an indicator when something isn't right or when Actemra isn't working for some reason.
When I asked if I still needed Actemra ... my rheumatologist said based on my inflammation markers .... I still need Actemra. My rheumatologist asked me why I would want to stop Actemra. I didn't have any reason to stop Actemra other than to see what might happen. My rheumatologist said he could probably predict what would happen if we stopped Actemra.