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Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR): Meet others & Share Your Story
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Jan 27 8:38am | Replies (1879)Comment receiving replies
Interesting stats published by NIH: "The median duration of therapy was 37.3 months. It was estimated that 40 percent of patients will require therapy longer than four years. Corticosteroids were permanently discontinued in 31 patients after a mean of 23.7 months of therapy. The data support the concept of two patient populations--one with limited disease and another requiring long-term therapy."
There's more at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4036982/
This is from 1985 but PMR is PMR, I believe.
Replies to "Interesting stats published by NIH: "The median duration of therapy was 37.3 months. It was estimated..."
Interesting. Thank you for sharing this.
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This study from the UK is more recent. It has a large sample size and is well done. This study says the following:
"The median (IQR) continuous GC treatment duration was 15.8 (7.9-31.2) months. However, around 25% of patients received more than 4 years in total of GC therapy."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30297332/
I believe there are people who have PMR a relatively short period of time and people who have PMR a long time.
I was on continuous prednisone treatment more than 12 years for PMR. I would still be taking prednisone except a biologic was tried. After a biologic was started, I was able to taper off prednisone in less than a year. I consider myself lucky to have been able to taper off prednisone after such a long time at an average dose close to 20 mg. More targeted treatments for PMR are warranted for people who need prednisone for a long time and are on higher prednisone doses.
There is also the problem with adrenal suppression as the following study suggests.
https://www.endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/0056/ea0056p44
It sometimes takes a year or more for adrenal function to improve after long term treatment with prednisone. In some cases adrenal insufficiency is long lasting and sometimes is permanent. These people require a maintenance dose of prednisone. When adrenal insufficiency is permanent, people are never able to taper off corticosteroids.