In fairness to your initial question and your request for comments on something unrelated to GCA I am going to share. My first question would be do you have any other symptoms like swollen lymph nodes that are not classic PMR symptoms? I have been arguing with my Rheumy for 5 years that I may have PMR but too many of my symptoms are not classic PMR. I have also seen an Infectious Disease doctor for the same period of time. He tried testing for dozens of problems and came up empty handed until he recently ran a Bartonella test. The results were a little mixed, but he agrees that something in the Bartonella family is probably at play. We are now culturing to see if the can ID anything - this is a 30+ day timeline. Bartonella is best known as Cat Scratch Fever. Most people recover without even knowing they have it, thus it is never diagnosed or treated.

I had swollen lymph nodes, leathery feeling on the center bottom of my feet, phantom pains in the back of the head, muscle cramps in strange places like the top of my feet, my shins, fingers and hands that would cramp and go stiff. More joint pain than the classic muscle pain, etc. Symptoms were not easily identifiable as not PMR and my inflammation markers were sky high.

Do not give up searching for answers is the best advice I can give you. I know I am a challenging patient, so I have had to learn to work with my doctors in ways I never expected my healthcare to require.