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"I agree that exercise has been very beneficial while being sick with and receiving treatment for GCA and PMR. It has helped me limit weight gain from the prednisone, and has also helped a lot with my mental clarity and mood. Plus I was able to maintain functional strength for everyday activities."
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The experts of the other forum certainly don't stress exercise. They warned that "delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) was caused by PMR." DOMS is normal after exercise after a period of inactivity if you ask me.
"Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the pain and stiffness felt in muscles after strenuous or unaccustomed exercise. It typically develops 24 to 72 hours after exercise, peaking around 48 hours."
Their advice would be more prednisone for DOMS so I'm not so sure the experts on that forum are medically sound. I mostly didn't like how they gave medical advice. They shouldn't claim to be experts and entitled to know things no medical expert would claim to know. Not that much is known about PMR/GCA because of the limited amount of research that is available for PMR/GCA.
Sorry for the rant. In any case ... I didn't need their advice to take it easy, avoid exercise and I should take more Prednisone for niggles of pain. I had the first part perfected without their advice but I didn't take more Prednisone for niggles.
Replies to ""I agree that exercise has been very beneficial while being sick with and receiving treatment for..."
I had my first bout of DOMS a few months back while on Pred. I had realised it was time to use heavier weights so got on with it. Before PMR DOMS would hit me the next day but this time it was a few hours later, I was so happy that my body was behaving normally. I read this yesterday, Exercise has a dramatic anti depressive effect, it blunts the brain’s response to physical and emotional stress. So true. Stress is not good for the immune system so PMR would use it. As I can no longer run properly I do what I refer to as a Chug. Tell my dog we are going Chugging and her tail is non stop. She seems to sense I need her with me and how happy it makes me. So my now 15-16 minute miles are a joke to how I used to be but I get a high every time, even if we have to stop at more then one lamp post. My cortisol levels rise so I know my adrenal hormones are good. Now that would not happen with gentle exercise.
I thought they suggest that DOMs does not respond to prednisolone. I envy the people on this post undertaking extensive exercise programs with PMR. It seems they don't experience any DOMs complications with their illness. Small amounts of exercise - especially repetitive - leave me with a high level of pain for more than a week. I walk 20 minutes a day and do 20 minutes of slow stretching exercises, (and that's about the current limit) and still run a small business which involves lots of repetitive steady movements of the small muscles (e.g. soldering). Initiall it took around 3 months after the onset of PMR for me to regain those skills. But none of the work involved can be done for more than 15 minutes at a time - or DOMs will hit for more than a week - and extra pred doesn't help. Sometimes paracetamol can be effective.
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I definitely experienced lots of muscle soreness over close to 50 years of running, and it wasn't due to PMR or GCA.