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Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR): Meet others & Share Your Story
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jan 27 8:38am | Replies (1879)Comment receiving replies
@scpartain - Can you discuss increasing the dosage with your doctor/rheumatologist? From what I've read and my experience with the 2 occurrences of PMR, the standard starting dose of prednisone for PMR is 20 mg. At 20 mg I had zero pain fairly quickly after taking the prednisone. Other members may want to weigh in with their experience also. The pain starts coming back when you start tapering off the drug which is why it's done slowly. Also, each of us are really different when it comes to pain and tapering off of prednisone.
Replies to "@scpartain - Can you discuss increasing the dosage with your doctor/rheumatologist? From what I've read and..."
I agree. My first doc grudgingly put me on 10 mg (she wasn't convinced I had PMR and was very reluctant/sparing about the prednisone). It didn't do the trick. I got a second opinion and the second doc was willing to push it up to 20 mg, which did pretty well kick it. Haven't been able to taper off completely yet. Back down to 10 now, and trying to gradually shift to hydroxychloroquine per doc's advice.
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Yes, I plan to discuss it with the rheumatologist on Wednesday May 12 when I have an appointment. I plan to ask that the dosage be increased to a level where the pain is gone, or at least down to an acceptable level. This is not my first bout of PMR. I believe it began in 2008 when I had severe pain in my neck, shoulders, hips, and thighs. I thought at the time that the pain was caused by PMR but couldn't get a definitive diagnoses from the doctors I saw. After about six months the pain gradually left and I wasn't bothered by it until this year when I received the Pfizer vaccine which I believe caused it to flare again.