@rayabw

Prednisone has a way of deceiving people that all is well.

My body is riddled with severe arthritis in various places. There is a reason why inflammatory arthritis isn't treated with long term Prednisone because it masks the symptoms but doesn't prevent the damage. Biologics and other DMARDs do a better job of limiting the damage which is why people diagnosed with RA and in my case Reactive Arthritis aren't usually treated with Prednisone.

I was told that a biologic should have been started much sooner than it was in my case. Since my "primary diagnosis" was PMR ... I was treated with Prednisone. Unfortunately, my inflammatory arthritis was still lurking beneath the surface.

It all culminated with a spine surgeon telling me that I had severe spinal stenosis that needed urgent surgery. Apparently the arthritis in my lumbar spine was so severe that he wondered why something wasn't done sooner. My response to the spine surgeon was that "I didn't know that I had a bad back." He questioned what I took for pain and I said that I only took Prednisone.

A neurosurgeon and I and a similar conversion prior to surgery for trigeminal neuralgia. The neurosurgeon said he usually saw a list of pain medications a "mile long" for patients with trigeminal neuralgia. He didn't see any pain medications for me. I told the neurosurgeon that Prednisone worked "reasonably well" even though I was told that trigeminal neuralgia wasn't treated with Prednisone either.

Artificial intelligence states it very clearly:
"While Prednisone is highly effective for fast, short-term relief of inflammation, it is not considered a primary long-term treatment for autoimmune conditions like Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) or Reactive Arthritis because it does not sufficiently prevent joint damage and carries serious long-term risks."
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Just because people get diagnosed with PMR that doesn't preclude other serious conditions from also happening. Prednisone masks the symptoms of many conditions that are more serious than PMR. People who tell us to throw more Prednisone at all the pain are deceiving us too or are naive to think that the only condition that people can have is PMR.