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I'm just wondering what you would consider to be "useful medical advice." The standard of care for PMR is prednisone and wait for PMR to burn itself out. After remission is achieved, a slow taper off Prednisone is the standard advice. My rheumatologist "encouraged" me to taper off prednisone as soon as possible to minimize the risk of long term side effects.
People probably don't need more medical advice than this except when people are unable to taper off prednisone in a timely fashion. All the side effects from my long term prednisone use were handled by my primary care doctor. My doctors deferred to an ophthalmologist for cataracts, high intraocular pressures and other problems with my eyes.
My rheumatology visits during my 12 years mostly consisted of evaluating my pain and inflammation levels and checking on how much prednisone I was taking.
I needed a ton of prednisone but I always had a prescription when I needed more. I was grateful for all the encouragement to taper off prednisone as soon as I could and 12 years was too long to be on prednisone daily. Other than trying all of the standard steroid sparing medications, there wasn't much more that could be done under the circumstances.
After some initial confusion and a personality conflict with my first rheumatologist, a second rheumatologist diagnosed me with PMR. After that I had the same rhematologist for 12 years. She had empathy for my pain and understood how difficult it was for me to taper off prednisone. I didn't expect more than that.
Replies to "I'm just wondering what you would consider to be "useful medical advice." The standard of care..."
'Useful to the individual' is how I'd define it.
I can relate to your initial confusion and a personality conflict with your first rheumatologist. Mine diagnosed me with lupus right off the bat and was upset when I asked questions, finally writing in his chart (he left open on his desk for me to see) that I was "hysterical." (I swear I was calm and sought only to learn his reasoning.) I sought a second opinion and that rheumatologist thought it acted like PMR, responded like PMR, and eventually said there was no doubt about the diagnosis. I don't recall how fast she tapered Prednisone but it apparently was too fast because I came down with the symptoms the following year. I believe I was on the drug for just 1-1/2 years. She said this may never recur, or may show up in say, 10 years--no telling. The name is really just a description of its symptoms in Latin and that little was known about it.
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I’m so glad to hear that you’ve had a positive experience for the most part with your health care.