I have had PMR for more than a year and a half. It took ~ 6 months to get diagnosed (because I was slightly under age 50). My current rheumatologist finally put me on 20 mg pred which finally helped and I've been trying to taper but am back up to 10 mg. He now has me shifting over to Plaquenil at 300 mg/day and it has been a little over a month. He says it will take ~ 3 months to have any effect so I'm just very gradually tapering the pred until then. I was also leery of trying this medication so I got a second opinion (he endorsed). They want to spare the prednisone, esp as I'm heading into menopause (osteo risk). Apparently they think because my blood numbers were a bit all over the place there's a chance there is some emerging RA or something - doc says there is overlap. (Fortunately I'm not having any issues in my hands yet.) So they think Plaquenil is safer for possible need for longer-term treatment.