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John - thank you . It appears there's no consensus and the question may remain unanswered: If I have PMR do I have vasculitis?
Certainly I found this direction interesting in one of the articles: "The attending clinician should always screen for large cranial and extracranial vessel vasculitis as part of the polymyalgic syndrome, especially in patients who present with strong constitutional symptoms. This can require additional tests, such as vascular US or a PET-CT scan for large vessel GCA."
Given that there are so many different presentations of GCA (and who knows of systemic vasculitis doesn't cause of other vascular or heart related problems.) Don't know about others experience, but my rheumi is only focused on Prednisone and ramping down.... doesn't even acknowledge the systemic effects of PMR.
Replies to "John - thank you . It appears there's no consensus and the question may remain unanswered:..."
I asked my dr about this. He said that PMR causes the facia of the muscles to become inflamed. That inflammation can cause restriction in the vascular system but it’s not really vasculitis itself.
@kspowell -Your final sentence in this post really resonated with me. I have similar feelings about my rheumi. I have had PMR for about one year and first presented with an extremely elevated CRP of 165. I could understand the focus in reducing that number and the steroid treatment has been successful. My CRP has been normal since last fall and we are tapering off the steroid. So, the pain is controlled but I still have symptoms which seem to come in waves and dissipate in a day or so. The symptoms include extreme fatigue, loss of appetite and body temp regulation, tingling of skin (particularly the scalp), some pain in the pelvis area, and increased morning stiffness. I characterized this as a flare and fully expected my CRP to be elevated but it was not. So I asked the doctor if these PMR symptoms w/o CRP elevation were normal but she would not engage the question.
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I think it's great that you are asking questions and researching all of the possibilities. There is certainly a lot that is not known on the different connections and causes of PMR.