It’s worth trying to see if it helps. Tylenol is usually more commonly recommended for people for whom bleeding, stomach ulcers, or kidney issues are a risk (which is most older people) as opposed to NSAIDs. Plus if you’re taking prednisone, it’s not recommended to mix that with NSAIDs…which is probably why your rheumatologist brings up Tylenol.

But Tylenol tends to be pretty useless for me; I think it’s because my arthritis pain is inflammatory (I have a different inflammatory arthritis and my dad has PMR). Tylenol doesn’t work for period pain, headaches, or other my arthritis l pain so I just don’t bother with it anymore. NSAIDs are anti-inflammatory, which is how they give relief whereas literally no one knows how Tylenol relieves pain. It’s hypothesized it acts somewhere in the central nervous system and it’s possible some people don’t respond as well.

My dad doesn’t use Tylenol unless he has a fever because it actually makes him really drowsy. The same thing happens to his sister.

Tylenol is pretty low risk so it may be worth trying. But unless my dad is in a flare, his pain tends to be pretty well-managed on the prednisone. However he is also in PT and does some stretches and at least some of his home exercises most days.