Deb, @milld835 your back pain may be nerve pain which would be different than pain from inflammation which is what the steroids help with. Talk with your PCP about possibly getting tests to determine root cause of back pain. I am having problems with doctors wanting to assign all my pain to PMR, what I call "piling on". I have had to be a strong advocate for myself over this, in the end I did have other causes for some of my pain. All were successfully separately treated and never would have responded to steroids.