Pseudo gout

I had the same thing happen to me. The trigger was planting flowers and kneeling on many hard surfaces. The knee swelled up and became very painful. Before I saw an orthopedist, I tried physical therapy, acupuncture and went on a vacation using a wrap, ice and Advil. Nothing worked until the orthopedist removed 6 test tubes of fluid and injected a steroid. The fluid showed the pseudogout. This happened 5 years ago. I now use a gardeners bench and avoid putting any pressure on the knee and it has not recurred. It does require new ways of gardening and cleaning which do not involve getting on my hands and knees.

Thank you .
I had fluid removed from my knee and a steroid shot. My knee felt great for about a month. It is now swollen and painful again 🙁

Prednisone is terrible for people and there are ways to deal with gout or pseudo gout which the doctors neglect to tell their patients. You absolutely should research home remedies for gout and change your diet to be gout free. I had to do that for 20 years and then the home remedies stopped working and I need you to go on gout medication. Have your uric acid levels tested it’s a simple blood or urine test. I suffered for 25 years with inflammatory reactions and pain in my joints from gout. My father had gout it’s a hereditary disease so if you know anybody in your family that has it, you’ve inherited it and it’s gout and not pseudo gout. The whole thing with pseudo gout is dumb if you repetitively have flares, then you have gout.

Pseudogout is also referred to as cppd, calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease. I was diagnosed with cppd my first year of pmr. I had my hands xrayed because of pain and swelling. Last year I had my left knee xrayed which showed osteoarthritis and cppd arthropathy. As far as I know there is no medicine that will cure cppd or dissolve cppd calcium crystals. It's a form of inflammatory arthritis.

Maybe Actemra (tocilizumab) or Kevzara (sarilumab) would be helpful. I was recently diagnosed with gout ... not pseudo gout. I was diagnosed with PMR a long time ago in 2007. I was treated with prednisone until 2019 when Actemra finally allowed me to taper off prednisone in 2020. I have stayed off Prednisone ever since.

Gout was diagnosed last year in 2024 but my uric acid level was found to be elevated a few years prior to that' I passed a kidney stone composed of 80% uric acid so that was what prompted my uric acid level to be checked. An abdominal CT-scan showed numerous other kidney stones scattered throughout both kidneys in 2021.

I denied having symptoms of gout when the kidney stones were found. I would have attributed any pain caused by gout to PMR. Prednisone is a treatment for gout so it might have relieved some symptoms of gout.

Gout was confirmed by an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed rather large gout tophi in the joints of my big toe. My rheumatologist thought it was surprising that I never had a gout flare. I wasn't sure that I would know if I ever had a gout flare. I was already diagnosed with reactive arthritis in addition to PMR. I might have been unaware of gout pain.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/gout-tophi-tophus
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The brain has limits to how much pain that can be processed. The presence of multiple painful conditions like PMR and reactive arthritis involves significant joint inflammation and pain. Everything combined might have been difficult for me to isolate the symptoms of one condition from the others.

Gout is something new to me. What makes gout intriguing is how it is also associated with elevated IL-6 levels just like PMR, It is thought that IL-6 inhibitors might be an appropriate treatment for PMR and gout. Because IL-6 is central to the inflammation in both conditions, researchers have explored IL-6 inhibitors as a therapeutic approach.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1297319X25000971

@pmrsuzie Thank you so much for your information.
Just another inflammatory issue !

Here is a brief synopsis of pseudo gout and PMR which is in the autoimmune category of illness. That said, PMR is also considered a vascular disease with an autoimmune thrust. GCA for example is vascular, not strictly autoimmune. In response to your query.
Pseudogout is not an autoimmune disease but can cause a strong inflammatory response by the immune system. The condition, also known as calcium pyrophosphate deposition (CPPD) disease, involves the buildup of calcium pyrophosphate crystals in the joints, leading to symptoms that can mimic both gout and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. While direct autoimmune issues are not the cause, there are some connections: certain conditions like myelodysplastic syndrome (a blood disorder) can be associated with pseudogout, and some treatments for pseudogout (like steroids) can help manage the autoimmune-like inflammation.
Hope this is helpful!
Best.