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Prednisone for life?

Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jun 21 9:45pm | Replies (18)

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@dadcue I am always interested, but I was confused and I have this question for you. Do you have CPPD go or do you have uric acid type gout? The CPPD is the calcium deposit one that I was referring to the uric acid level one is when your body goes acidic. The treatments are different. I have the high uric acid level gout. The pseudo gout is the CPPD. I want to point out that the biologic are very harsh kind of like the prednisone so before you start getting excited about those remedies, I want to be sure that you’ve investigated, and they have told you which you have the pseudo, gout or the gout. If you have the gout, then pushing your body to be alkaline is what you need to do either from low purine diet, drinking liquids that push your body alkaline like a squeeze of lemon in your water daily and the allopurinol. The CPPD is a different protocol which it sounds like you’re on with the colcherine. I probably spelled that wrong.! maybe they think you have both. My father had gout and I never knew it because it was well controlled. My mom used to make him a thermos to take to work every day with warm water and a squeeze of lemon. My father never drank anything anywhere anytime any place other than hot water with lemon and I never knew he had gout until my mother died and he stopped getting the lemon in the water. I have pretty much given up alcohol because my body is not interested in it which is a good thing cause that’s not good for you either when you have pseudo, gout or gout. And like I said, I keep a low purine diet and sometimes I can start to feel a twinge in my big toe so I just start flushing water and alkaline type drinks and I’ve never had another gout flare since my initial ones 25 years ago. But achy and stiff like you wouldn’t believe until I started taking the tart cherry capsules, and then the allopurinol.

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Replies to "@dadcue I am always interested, but I was confused and I have this question for you...."

@loriesco

A limited amount of research has shown that an interleukin-6 (IL-6) inhibitor such as Actemra (tocilizumab) to be a promising alternative for treating crystal-induced arthritides, such as gout and pseudogout (CPPD). Gout and pseudogout are different types of inflammatory arthritis.

This is a better link that discusses this.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40550451/
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I have gout since my uric acid level was high. The kidney stone that I passed was also composed of uric acid crystals. The problem with diagnosing me with gout was because I was taking prednisone for PMR. Because prednisone is the primary treatment for PMR, it probably suppressed my immune system's inflammatory response to the uric acid crystals in my joints.

I have a complicated medical history which includes inflammatory arthritis which was diagnosed when I was 32 year old. Now I am 72 years old. I have listed some of my medical problems during the past 40 years in my profile. You can see what is listed by clicking on @dadcue

I agree ... it is all very confusing to me too. I have been on Actemra (tocilizumab) for 7 years. After PMR was diagnosed, I took prednisone daily for 12 years with little hope of ever being able to taper off prednisone. I haven't needed any Prednisone for 5 years. I'm doing much better being off Prednisone and on Actemra.

Gout was diagnosed recently after I tapered off prednisone. The speculation was that prednisone masked my symptoms of gout.