Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR): Meet others & Share Your Story

I’m not sure if I am typical or not. I took a very hard fall, I’m kind of a “just get up and keep going” person. I slammed the whole right side of my body onto concrete floor. About a week later I had difficulty lifting a cup with my right arm.. right shoulder and ribs very painful.. thinking”I broke something”
A few days later woke with terrible flu like symptoms “but not quite exact” . I could not get myself upright from bed, could not get up from chair, get in and out of bathtub, get dressed. Curiously the severe pain was only right ribs , arm and shoulder and only then moved into my left shoulder. Otherwise just severe general malaise and low grade fever. I am very active 71 and was returning from a 5 mile hilly hike when I fell.
7 trips to Dr, and numerous blood tests and xrays over a month to get diagnosis.. CRP and sed rate thru roof. 1 dose of prednisone and all better… apparently this is defining. That was several months ago and weaning prednisone now, on 3mg.
My onset was very quick and very hard. My Dr thinks I may not relapse. I hope not. I love gardening and hiking and I live alone.

I’m not sure if I am typical or not. I took a very hard fall, I’m kind of a “just get up and keep going” person. I slammed the whole right side of my body onto concrete floor. About a week later I had difficulty lifting a cup with my right arm.. right shoulder and ribs very painful.. thinking”I broke something”
A few days later woke with terrible flu like symptoms “but not quite exact” . I could not get myself upright from bed, could not get up from chair, get in and out of bathtub, get dressed. Curiously the severe pain was only right ribs , arm and shoulder and only then moved into my left shoulder. Otherwise just severe general malaise and low grade fever. I am very active 71 and was returning from a 5 mile hilly hike when I fell.
7 trips to Dr, and numerous blood tests and xrays over a month to get diagnosis.. CRP and sed rate thru roof. 1 dose of prednisone and all better… apparently this is defining. That was several months ago and weaning prednisone now, on 3mg.
My onset was very quick and very hard. My Dr thinks I may not relapse. I hope not. I love gardening and hiking and I live alone.

Hi,
I'm curious if anyone had their PMR start shortly (maybe 2 to4 weeks) after a vaccine shot. Mine did about a year ago after a Prevnar-20 vaccination! While trying to deal with the pain through physical therapy I discovered 3 more patients with similar beginnings to their PMR stories. Two had symptoms that began after COVID vaccine shots and one after the current flu vaccine. Research has revealed a small number of additional patients starting PMR following COVID shots. Manufactures have little or no info to share. I lived with the pain 6 months until my MD son came home and recommended CRP & ESR tests which confirmed it. I still have it after slowly stepping down the dose conc. to zero over several months. The only potential allergen I find common to all three vaccines is Tween-80. Two new surfactants have been developed that in the future may replace Tween-80 in vaccines and other drugs.

Hello. I started at 60mg, weaning by 20 mg, down every three days to 20 mg which I stayed on for about a week then weaned by 5 mg every three days until I reached 5 mg which I stayed on for two months. A recheck of my inflammatory markers showed them back in the normal range. Now I am weaning by 1 mg a month. I can’t say that I have had any significant symptoms return during this process.
My symptoms abated with in the first couple days of starting prednisone; I have been told that it is diagnostically definitive for PMR if your symptoms abate quickly with prednisone.