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Weaning off of prednisone & pain management
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Oct 25 10:23am | Replies (156)Comment receiving replies
I had some lingering pain but the pain could be explained and it wasn't caused by PMR. I felt alive again but not as soon as I tapered off Prednisone. It took a long time and it was eventually a wonderful thing to be off Prednisone.
Whoever thinks prednisone gives your life back --- that feeling is only temporary. Long term use of prednisone saps the life out of you again if you ask me. What remaining life I had was characterized by overwhelming fatigue.
Pain wasn't good either so I certainly think there was a need for me to take prednisone in the beginning to stop the PMR pain. I'm not so sure I needed prednisone to control my "PMR pain" for the entire time I took prednisone.
Pain wasn't my "overwhelming problem" most of the time until it recurred on low dose prednisone. I would tell my rheumatologist, I needed a "cortisol fix." compared to having a "flare of PMR."
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I completely agree with this. In cases the cure is worst than the disease. I started on 20 mg of pred and felt pretty good. After a month I started to taper against the warnings of my Primary care Dr. I was taking 10 mg when I saw Rheumy. No PMR issues based on blood work. Rheumy put me on a 1mg/month taper schedule. I decided to go faster and went from 10 to 4 mg in 10 weeks. Was pretty tied most of the time but kept of my routine of hiking 40-50 miles/week and stretching 2-3 X/day. By end of August pain was pretty bad but blood work did not show any issues with PMR. Went up to 13mg of pred and starting working my way back down. By middle of September I started to to connect the dots to what I ate to how much pain I was having. I also discovered that sitting in a sauna did wonders for the pain. I redid my diet and have been able to get down to 3.5 mg with only mild pain and almost no fatigue. This week for the first time in over a year I feel mostly like my old self. I apologize for posting all of this on someone else's thread but we are all here to help and support each other