Hi, I had horrible pain and stiffness in my whole body from the neck down for four months, with slightly elevated inflammatory markers that my Primary Care Physician did not follow up on. That horrible pain receded after 9 months, but I developed other troubling symptoms. Long story short, one year after the onset of the first symptoms, I was diagnosed with Giant Cell Arteritis, the companion disorder of PMR. My sed rate was 120. If there is a dramatic clinical response to symptoms of PMR, within 1-3 days after steroid institution, even without the inflammatory markers, it supports the diagnosis. (Cecil and Goldman's Textbook of Medicine). The symptoms are indicators of these disorders, sometimes more than the lab test results. Prednisone took away 98% of my pain, but I have osteoarthritis in the right shoulder, which is still painful and for which I am getting physical therapy.