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Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR): Meet others & Share Your Story

Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Nov 18, 2024 | Replies (1907)
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@missy3134

Hello all,

I just stumbled upon this group while searching for natural remedies for PMR. I was diagnosed one year ago. I started with 20 mg Prednisone and was on that dose for 6 or 7 months when my doctor started lowering my dose. I am down to 5mg as of this week and I am in a lot of pain. In May my doctor gave me a prescription for Hydroxychloroquine to take along with the Prednisone. While in Hawaii on vacation I developed a terrible rash (due to sun exposure) which is a side effect of Hydroxychloroquine. The rash lasted 3 weeks and was very uncomfortable. I stopped taking the drug, figuring it was causing me more harm than good. When my dose of Prednisone was lowered to 5mg, the pain was so bad I started taking Hydroxychloroquine again.

My doctor’s plan is to slowly get me off Prednisone and just take Hydroxychloroquine.

Is anyone else taking Hydroxychloroquine? If so, are you have side effects?

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Replies to "Hello all, I just stumbled upon this group while searching for natural remedies for PMR. I..."
jabrown0407 | @jabrown0407 | Jul 11, 2022

Please be careful with Hydroxychloroquine. It has a 30 day or more half life (the range of days is based on how well you metabolize the drug) which means if you take one pill today it takes 30+ days for half of it to be out of your system. To get it down to where it is considered completely out of your system it normally takes 5 half lives - 150+ days. My first Rheumatologist wanted me on Hydroxychloroquine and I declined because of the half life facts and the known side effects. Prednisone has a 3-4 hour half life for comparison.

You can read up on any drug at Drugs.com - it has a lot of god information for patients on drugs.

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ajf | @ajf | Jul 13, 2022

I was on hydroxy chloroquine after two other drugs failed as well. It seems the only thing that works for me is 8 mlg of medrol "methylprednisolone" or 10 mlg Prednisone, personally the medrol works the best. Wheni start to decrease my pain starts to increase within a day or two. I have been on this roller coaster for 15 months. I have scoured every health food and supplement stores and online with no real results. The only thing that works on me is the steroids.

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