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PMR relapse symptoms

Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: 19 hours ago | Replies (72)
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Profile picture for urusvati @urusvati

@elizadolittle I think you may be on to something. My spine doctor suggested that what symptoms remained after stenosis treatment was likely PMR. And, after PMR treatment, especially at beginning pred doses, the symptoms that remained were stenosis. The doctors didn't seem to have a way to distinguish between the two. Kind of disheartening.

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Replies to "@elizadolittle I think you may be on to something. My spine doctor suggested that what symptoms..."
Mike | @dadcue | Dec 17 2:26pm

@urusvati

Don't get disheartened. It takes time to sort things out when you are treated with Prednisone. I was on Prednisone for 12 years to treat PMR until I finally tapered off.

Prednisone works for any type of pain that is associated with inflammation and not just PMR. Whenever someone is diagnosed with PMR, they get instant pain relief from Prednisone so they assume their pain was caused by PMR. That is a fallacy because pain by its very nature tends to have at least some inflammation as a component of the pain. Prednisone treats any kind of inflammation and not just the inflammation caused by PMR.

What I'm saying is that people diagnosed with PMR shouldn't automatically assume that pain relieved by Prednisone is PMR related. I have multiple conditions including spinal stenosis, nerve pain, inflammatory arthritis in addition to PMR. I can safely say that Prednisone helped to relieve all of my sources of pain.

The problem for me was not how I could live with all of that pain. My problem was how was I going to live without prednisone. Then I learned there were better options available to treat spinal stenosis, nerve pain and inflammatory arthritis. After PMR was treated without prednisone ... my quality of life improved dramatically.

The irony of long term prednisone use is that it causes its own pain when you try to taper off. This type of pain is caused by prednisone withdrawal and adrenal insufficiency. The pain also feels like PMR and it is also relieved by more Prednisone

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