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Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR): Meet others & Share Your Story
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Nov 18 7:12pm | Replies (1907)Comment receiving replies
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?
Replies to "Hello all, I just stumbled upon this group while searching for natural remedies for PMR. I..."
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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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.