Kevzara?

Hey! I am 54 yo female. Diagnosed in October out of the blue. I was on up to 30mg daily. Clearly all the side effects awful. I have taken 5 shots every two weeks. I am now on 4mg. You can taper down 1mg per week. If feel pain can increase. It takes 12 weeks Kevzara to get into your system. I feel good. Little pain in joints and shoulders but not bad. Worse in the am but functioning fine. Trying to start Pilates or barre again. I also sleep on a grounding mattress pad and that has helped. I am hopeful

Hey! I am 54 yo female. Diagnosed in October out of the blue. I was on up to 30mg daily. Clearly all the side effects awful. I have taken 5 shots every two weeks. I am now on 4mg. You can taper down 1mg per week. If feel pain can increase. It takes 12 weeks Kevzara to get into your system. I feel good. Little pain in joints and shoulders but not bad. Worse in the am but functioning fine. Trying to start Pilates or barre again. I also sleep on a grounding mattress pad and that has helped. I am hopeful

You have the proper indications for your doctor to prescribe Kevzara and
insurance should pay if you appeal and your rheumatologist does the paperwork.

Hi,
I'm a 72 yo female first diagnosed 6/23 was on predisone (varying dosages) for 9 mos then started Kevzara (no side effects) 3/24 and was able to taper off of predisone within 4 mos. I have been on Kevzara only for the past 8 mos with virtually no symptoms of PMR and no side effects of Kevzara. I have been tapering down to every three weeks instead of every two weeks for the past 5 months (no flair) I am now trying every 4 weeks and if I continue to be symptom-free I am going to ask my Rheumatologist if she thinks I am truly in remission and can go off of it altogether. Fingers crossed. Good luck to you. Kevzara was a game changer for me and I was reluctant to try it because of the side effects. My Dr convinced me that Predisone long term was much worse than the Prednisone.

Ty Harelover! Most helpful comment! Good luck to you.
Kass

My PMR began in January of 2022. In April of 2024 I was trying to taper off Prednisone for the second time when the PMR symptoms returned. My Rheumatologist suggested I try Kevzara. It took some time for insurance company approval but I now have taken 18 dosages (200 mg/1.14 ml every two weeks). I'm off Prednisone and feel the best I have since the PMR started. During the previous two tapers the symptoms would return when I reached a Prednisone dosage of between 5 - 7 mg. All signs of the inflammation are gone. The Rheumatologist expects I will need to remain on the Kevzara for 12-18 months. My Sed rate and CRP which had reached highs of 80 and 6 are now less than one and 0.03 respectively. Kevzara has worked great for me so far. I had no side effects during the first 6 months taking Kevzara but recently have had some swelling and rash at the injection site. The rheumatologist says this is normal and it goes away in a couple of days.

Kevzara is a game changer.