Hey John, thanks for sharing and thank you to the others doing the same, greatly appreciated!

I don’t know that I have anything more to help all of you dealing with PMR, except that I believe in my case this all got started within a couple days of each of the Pfizer vaccines. Within a few days of shot #1, I was diagnosed by an orthopedic surgeon as having frozen shoulder. Just after shot #2, my other shoulder started to have similar pain, discomfort and motion limitations. Then a couple weeks later, my entire body was in tremendous pain and I had no strength to get out of bed once I woke up in the morning. The pain generally subsided by afternoon, but each morning was horrible. I finally was able to see an arthritis & rheumatoid specialist who took blood & diagnosed me with PMR. He prescribed prednisone and I immediately was 100% back to normal.

This all started in April of 2001 and I went from 15mg and now down to 10mg, stepping down about 1mg every 2-3 weeks. The doc said it would take a year of taking prednisone, stepping down the dose until I’m at 1mg then I should be “cured” and off prednisone. He said if the PMR symptoms appear afterwards (although not very likely) I should be able to do a quick round of prednisone to knock it out.

I should also mention that I was diagnosed with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2018, given 6 rounds of chemo and have been in remission since 2029. Praise God!

What I have found is that keeping active and getting lots of exercise is a must. I ride my bike 4-5 times a week for at least an hour, play tennis once a week and do yoga a couple times a week. I also do exercises every couple of days. I’m on eloquis (5 mg twice a day) because of a blood clot in my right leg. So, I’m not supposed to have alcohol, but I sneak in a glass of red wine every week or so. Thankfully, I have not gained any weight so far, but I try very hard to eat well and watch my portions.

Bottom line is I’m 69 and feel very blessed that I’m able to manage all this quite well. I hope the doc is correct in that after taking prednisone for a year I can kiss the PMR goodbye! But, after reading this thread, my doc may be overly optimistic.

My takeaway is prednisone is an absolute lifesaver and having God’s healing hands on me is also paramount to my being able to deal with these health issues so well.

Hope there is something here that is helpful for you, John or others reading the thread. Thank you all for taking the time to share. This Mayo site really is a great way to learn from others diagnosed with PMR. Take care!