Thank you so much for moderating this group. I have found very valuable tidbits of information that relate directly to my circumstances, and have also found a group of folks that can share and support each other. Again, thank you.

I now find myself at a junction I haven't found a thread for... getting the SARS-2 Covid virus (is that the latest name for covid?) while also dealing with PMR.

I'm 73 and have been on a tapering dose of prednisone for three years - currently taking 2.5 mg or 1.25 mg on alternating days. I also take blood pressure medicine (enalapril, 20 mg/day). This covid episode was brought into my life by a well meaning friend who had no idea he'd been infected until he'd passed it on to me. It's been a very rough nine days so far, but aside from the yuck that you get with covid, my issue deals with my very low-dose prednisone not being able to keep up with the cortisol my body has needed during this illness. That, and how the enalapril has dropped my blood pressure into a very dangerous range (77/66, pulse 89) putting me at risk of cortisol crisis. Until this week, I had no idea what that even was.

After a chat with my rheumatologist ("stay the course!") and some fairly harsh admonitions from my cardiologist ("suspend the enalapril at once, and don't resume until I see you in my office and give you the okay!"), I realize that I cannot rely blindly on their counsel. My cardiologist thought I ought to bump the prednisone back to 5 or 10 mg daily until I got over the covid. You can imagine how I felt after hearing yet another reason to delay the taper...

Anyway, I just wanted to vent a little and ask if anyone else is dealing with covid while on a tapering dose of prednisone for PMR? If so, what are you doing to address your symptoms? If you're getting contradictory advice from the M.D.s in your sphere, how do you decide who to listen to? I've been really hesitant to ask AI because of all of the misinformation floating around.

Thanks for reading...