Thanks Carol for the reply and interesting information. Please clarify what you mean by massage clots. I use a power massage gun to massage most muscles in my body including my calf’s. I purchased the massage gun, I believe, in February which was about a month and a half before I was diagnosed with PMR and it has helped with muscle soreness and stiffness. I did read that massage therapy is not good if you have clots in your legs because it could cause them to break up and travel to your heart, lungs or brain. When I asked my Hematologist about using the massage gun she basically said if you’re going to continue to use it use it lightly and be gentle. When I asked her how I could’ve gotten clots in my lungs and have none in my legs she said it’s quite possible that whatever clots broke up and traveled to my lungs have already cleared my legs and that’s why they didn’t show up in the ultrasound of my legs. She and my rheumatologist, by the way also said they didn’t think prednisone was the culprit. I have not found any medical literature indicating that blood clots are a side effect of prednisone or that there have been documented cases of people with PMR taking prednisone have had blood clots. I did however find several studies that indicated that people with PMR and/or GCA have a significantly higher rate of “vascular events “. Please let me know if you’ve had any advice about massage therapy or massage guns as well if you know if the clots in your legs were broken up by massage causing them to travel possibly before they could dissolve. Thanks for your help.

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