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GCA prednisone vs. actemra infusion therapy
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: 2 days ago | Replies (48)Comment receiving replies
Uveitis, you have dealt with a lot. I read up on it when I was having subconjunctival hemorrages continuously for 6 months. I was on 35 mg of prednisone when it started, and Actemra. It stopped suddenly after I had decreased prednisone to maybe 10, and hasn’t returned. No explanation ever found.
To answer your question, The relapse I had was GCA, scalp tenderness and temporal pain. No PMR symptoms that I recall.
Replies to "Uveitis, you have dealt with a lot. I read up on it when I was having..."
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Uveitis was just the start of things to come when I was 32 years old. I was diagnosed with reactive arthritis after an enteric infection. I was HLA-B27+ so that is blamed for multiple autoimmune conditions.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK551523/
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If reactive arthritis and uveitis wasn't enough, systemic inflammation exposed other medical problems not the least of which was trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Apparently TN can be confused with GCA. Good thing I was too young for PMR/GCA because the symptoms of everything combined could easily be misdiagnosed as PMR/GCA.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/trigeminal-neuralgia/symptoms-causes/syc-20353344
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PMR was a late addition to everything else. My rheumatologist always asks me if I have any symptoms of GCA. I know the difference so I deny GCA symptoms. My ophthalmologist who has treated more than 30 flares of uveitis says he doesn't see any evidence of GCA so that's reassuring.
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I might have large vessel vasculitis because my aorta doesn't look so good whenever a MRI of my spine is done. I don't have the diagnosis of GCA. However, when Actemra was started, I read the recommendation from the panel of doctors that authorized Actemra for me. The recommendation was to treat me with Actemra "AS IF" I had GCA.