Hi @kvd9 I don't think you can go wrong with a referral to a rhematologist. She/he will probably be your long term physician and monitor you through this. Also, has anyone warned you to watch for symptoms of Giant Cell Arteritis? About 30% of people with PMR develop it and it's nothing to mess with - it can cause stroke or blindness. I had full blown PMR for 3 mos and my inflammation markers were only slightly elevated - so I waited another 9 months to be diagnosed and then my ESR and CRP scores were very high. The PMR symptoms receded, but then the Giant Cell Arteritis symptoms kicked in. I wish you the best!

A few points that may help you sort this out. 15-20% of people have normal blood markers when diagnosed with PMR. Also, prednisone can affect your inflammation blood markers. PMR pain and ESR/CRP don't necessarily correlate. It's PMR pain that let's you know the amount of prednisone you need. According to Mayo, PMR lasts for 5.9 years on average. If the pain is back, you likely need to restart prednisone. If it's PMR, living with it without prednisone will be difficult or impossible. It's important to educate yourself. There's a lot of misinformation out there even in the medical field. I've found "healthunlocked" PMR group out of the UK to be a good resource. https://healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk/posts

Hi, I'm also in the process of tapering off prednisone and found that I need to go more slowly than my doctor initially recommended. I was on 15 mg and tried to go down to 10 in one step but within 24 hours I was in a lot of pain. So I went back up to 15 and have tapered back down to 10 by first going to 12.5 for a week, and then even cut my pills up so I was at approx 11 mg for a week before getting to 10, without feeling any increase in pain.