Heating pad or ice pack

I start every morning with a heat pack to my neck. It seems to help, and I haven’t tried ice so I can’t give you a comparison there. When I have a lot of general stiffness and pain, I swear by a hot bath with magnesium salts. For awhile, I did this every night before bed, and it helped with better sleep for me.

Thanks. I like heat better but think ice might help stiffness more but not sure.

Hi Linda,
I agree! Heat always seems to help better than ice for me. Ice actually seems to increase my spasms which are already ridiculous. I am also experiencing some major pain in my shoulder, elbow and shoulder blades right now. Hoping we both get some relief and permanent healing soon! ❤️

I find a hot tub for 20 minutes to be helpful. I often wonder why does heat help? Does anyone know on a physiologic basis why heat helps?

@floridalinda - hello - I found that you wrote earlier "I was diagnosed with PMR October 2022 after six months of symptoms. " Yikes -- is this your first relapse or flare up ? Are you saying that it took two years to taper to 5mg from ?? mg - and now you had to restart at 20 mg ?
To answer your question what I found to help my stiffness in shoulders and upper arms when was at a sub- optimal dose of Prednisone was to use a CBD cream PLUS Menthol and Camphor and then go for a walk ! In fact I could walk to our little conservation are with binoculars and look at birds for 30 minute - a good distraction form PMR. At the time I was taking a split dose of 15 or 20 mg Prednisone . What I noticed was then later in the afternoon* I could raise my arms over my head ( put hair in a ponytail for example). The lotion I had on hand was "CAUSE + MEDIC CBD pain creme" . The cooling sensation, as I recall, felt great !!! I hope you feel better soon - Maria

* Because I did not feel improvement until noon or later - I was working form home , using PTO and then went on Medical leave for 1 1/2 months.

In the 2 months of pain before diagnosis and starting on prednisolone I was sure that natural treatment would fix it, and tried a long hot bath. The pain was so much worse after the hot soak that I couldn't get out of the bath. It took a long time to gradually crawl onto the edge of the bath and work out how to slide down to the floor from there. Then came the problem of getting up. Even though now on prednisolone, I'm not game to try another bath. Microwave wheat heat bags for various sore muscles has helped.

Heat seems to work better for PMR. Cold works better for my inflammatory arthritis….

Maybe try a warm/hot shower next time. I also apply Aspercreme (10% Trolamine Salicylate) to the painful areas —don’t know if you have this formula in Australia?

I do have hot showers. They don't affect my pain one way or the other, but it's good to be painfree enough now to enjoy a shower. The bath episode was before I started on prednisolone.

I don't tend to need anything for pain except an occasional Osteopanadol after a taper. The ingredients for Aspercreme are:
Trolamine salicylate 10%, Aloe barbadensis leaf juice, cetyl alcohol, glycerin, methylparaban, mineral oil, potassium phosphate, propylparaban, stearic acid, triethanolamine.

Trolamine salicylate is another name for diclofenac, an NSAID. It might be okay for some to use with prednisone, but I'm being careful. I also avoid parabans - they're endocrine disruptors which are implicated in some auto-immune illnesses. I've tossed out all make-up, perfumes & skin creams for the same reason (endocrine disruptors) and have replaced plastic food storage containers with glass ones to avoid the endocrine disruptors in plastics. What a boring negative person I must sound, but I really am serious about avoiding whatever I can that might make me more unwell. Life was so much simpler eating junky food and ignoring all the chemical exposure.

That’s the first time I have heard this med is same as diclofenac, an NSAID cream that I avoid because I also do not touch most NSAID’s. They are not the same drug, chemically. The brand name for diclofenac is Volataren, Trolamine is in the aspirin family of drugs which don’t seem to bother me. These are two different medications that may also contain similar inactive ingredient’s, but active ingredient is very different.