I have been in full remission for ten years. I went through a very slow Prednisone taper over about 18 months. I still had at least one half-step to go. My Rheumatologist said “you’re done!”

But, over the past several weeks I am having the exact symptoms that I experienced at the beginning of my first PMR flare: sharp, but erratic, pains behind my left knee and back of the calf. Some minor soreness in left upper arm and shoulder. I originally went to a Sports Medicine doctor who sent me for an MRI. She declared a torn ACL though I had not done anything to injure it. A few weeks later, I went in with severe shoulder pain. She gave me three steroid shots as well as drain a huge amount of liquid from my left knee.

A week or so later, I could barely move. I couldn’t get into my primary so went to the ER. I had been studying my symptoms which included terrible night sweats and rapid weight loss.
I told the ER doctor to test me for PMR and it came back positive. He gave me a 60mg dose of Prednisone.
An hour later I was already feeling a bit better. This started me on the 18 month path to remission.
I truly hate the thought of going through that again.

I’m going to ask my primary to run the proper blood tests. Hopefully, it will come back negative so I can focus on another source of my pain. It just scares me that it’s the same pain I started with a decade ago.