Molly,

I am sorry to hear you’ve been so tortured by PMR. Obviously, anyway you can reduce stress should help. I suggest you look into deep breathing exercises which are easy and calming especially when you hit a stressful situation. Also, you might try myofacial release which I have found makes me at least some short term relief. You can use a foam roller on the floor and for arms on a wall. There are lots of YouTube videos on it. If you’re not up to the effort that requires a massage gun works well too for some relief. I hope you find some.

I'm very sorry you have suffered the pain of PMR and all the attendant problems for so many years. Like you, my first bout of PMR began during a period of anxiety and stress. The second time started immediately after I received the Covid vaccine. I feel your heartache and frustration and I hope you can find a way to reduce the stress in your life.

Molly thank you for sharing 💞. I am 78 years young and Stress has also been my trigger. I was a holistic massage therapist and was so “anti “ pharmaceuticals… then PMR entered my life and challenged everything I believed in to stay healthy. I went down the same path with all of the more natural therapies but in this case nothing seem to really work. In saying that I still believe that there are many natural and holistic therapies but sometimes we have to integrate both into our lives. For me I had to leave my ego at the door and go down the road less travelled for me. Prednisone is the drug we love to hate but for many of us it’s the drug that saves our lives both physically and mentally. Once I accepted that reality for myself I needed to deal with the stress and my doctor prescribed sertraline for the anxiety and obsessive thoughts I kept having. My world changed and the sun started to come out. This works for me and I’m certainly not encouraging anyone else to try more medication. Molly hang in there you’re in the right place here on the forum 💞🇨🇦💞