Hello to Dadcue, Tuckerp and all my fellow PMR people! I have read all your posts here in regards to PMR flares and I thought I would share what I recently went through!
I have had a bad case of Bronchitis for the last two months! I went to urgent care twice, was given zithromycin on one occasion with no relief. Second time I was put on a 10 day course of Doxycycline with no relief. During this time I had a horrible cough, producing thick, green sputum. I was feeling weak and the pain in my shoulders and rib cage was awful. I also had no appetite and lost 12 pounds! So I saw my pulmonologist and he did numerous blood tests and also cultured the sputum I was coughing up. I had very heavy growth of an organism that was resistant to the 2 previous antibiotics. So I was put on Levofloxacin, a very strong antibiotic with potentially bad side effects! The good news is that after 3 days my coughing stopped and I could breathe better!! I finished the antibiotics but I had the worst pain from my PMR in my shoulders and neck area. I took an extra 5 mg of prednisone ( I’m on 7.5 mg) and an extra dose of Tylenol, 500 mg rapid release capsules , and rubbed some Aspercreme on the affected areas. Within a week of finishing my antibiotics my PMR was at least back to normal pain levels for me and I was starting to regain some weight—my pcp had me drinking nutritional shakes for diabetics. The good news is I’m finally feeling better and hopefully can go on a biologic soon! Thanks to all of you who have contributed your stories to this forum. They are really a big help to everyone!