Connect
← Return to Are painful swollen hands and fingers a PMR flare?
Discussion
Are painful swollen hands and fingers a PMR flare?
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jul 4 1:54pm | Replies (158)Comment receiving replies
I don’t know—it really sounds like a lot of you might have arthritis and PMR. Classic PMR affects the shoulders, neck, upper arms, upper back and sometimes the muscles of the hips. Arthritis affects joints everywhere, but mine lately pops up in my hands and feet and I have some deformity from it. I had arthritis long before PMR and I can usually tell them apart. With arthritis flares in my joints it is so painful I can’t even walk if it’s in my ankles and feet. With PMR , my muscles are painful to touch and movement, but I can still move, if that makes any sense. It’s kind of hard to explain but it does affect me differently.
Replies to "I don’t know—it really sounds like a lot of you might have arthritis and PMR. Classic..."
Connect
When i had my onset, it was in hands for two days, then it was shoulders, hips, ankles and was excruciating, accompanied by profound weakness. I couldn't sleep because if I rolled over my shoulders screamed. I had to put my shampoo bottle between my knees to squeeze because my hands were too weak.
My new Rheumy a few weeks later was inclined toward PMR but something made her give me a trial of Humira - and i had improvement in less than a week.
The point is that our maladies are more similar than different. I still occasionally get a period of the shoulders/hips thing and my Rheumy gives me 20 mg of Prednisone to taper down. But what I live with every day is RA. So do I have both or just some weird variant? Who knows - or cares. But you are correct that treating RA with Remicade won't do anything for the PMR symptoms. That takes Prednisone.