Wow.
OK, well, that is a new one. Have you seen a neurologist?
I have not taken pred and don't intend to unless I develop GCA and boy, they'd better be ready to put me in an induced coma as I'd never tolerate the side effects. Anyway, as with you (and I prob said this in my original post), they don't think I have PMR, yet the bi-lateral and type of pain are so spot on. But who knows?
Yes, I had similar pain to yours to start but no calf issues. Then it progressed to upper arms. Groin is particularly sensitive when it decides to hurt. Right now I have very little pain but in an hour, who know? Evenings are the most painful. End of day and arms are very sore.

As far as the rheum, I was handed off to him by my rheum, a very compassionate and brilliant young woman who decided to quit being a doc. She said he was just so warm and funny.
At any rate, I waited a month to see him and when he walked in (very very young), he thought we were going to speak about osteoporosis, another gift from my mom and possibly Prilosec. He was up and running, excited to give me the osteo infusion talk. I told him "No!", I need your help with something else. It should have been all over the previous doc's notes, my records, even a portal note I sent. He had no idea. It was late in the day, the guy was prob exhausted from caring for his new influx of inherited patients. I get that and here I am, posing a challenge. He had to look at notes, US results, at the labs I had printed out, highlighted and organized for him. When he got to cytokine labs, he literally threw those papers into my face, "I don't deal with that, it's not something we pay any attention to." And he said some other words I couldn't take in at that point. The blinding light and loud blare of anger and anxiety had taken over. I needed to get up and leave. I asked him to look into the corner of my eyes where I have yellow dots, which started around the same time as my symptoms. He used his phone as a light. I asked if he had magnification, that he couldn't see it without that. He said, "NO! And even if I could see them, I wouldn't even try to deal with it. We don't handle that kind of thing here." So moronic for a smart young man to behave that way.
That kind of response screams "Auto Immune!" If he doesn't know anything about that, what good is he?
I couldn't wait to leave. He wanted to drain my Bakers cysts and give me a bunch of cortisone shots in each knee and both arms. I said, "I don't think so..it's late...not today." No way was I letting him stick anything close to a needle into me. He said, "OK!" Was so glad to be free from this crazy lady who expected him to do his research. To care about looking into something that doesn't fit his cooky cutter list of diagnoses. How boring for him.
"Just go right out here and make an appt for a few wks or so to get the cysts drained, then in 4 weeks we'll have our very focused discussion about osteo." Little does he know how many of those discussions I've already had. I told the receptionist I'd call. "Bye!" she happily said.
So that's the story. And thanks for your kind words.