Those were pretty much my dad’s symptoms, except he had a little more mobility in his shoulders. I have fibromyalgia (and I am 40), and we learned that a few things that distinguish PMR from at least my fibro are: Age (Fibro can happen at any age, but as you know with PMR, it’s usually with people who are older, sudden onset—it is usually sudden and suddenly severe and functionally limiting, i.e. can’t get out of bed all off a sudden, and it gets worse quickly without treatment—and there’s pain in mostly the “large muscles” (shoulders, hips, core). Also usually, but (annoyingly) not always ESR and CRP blood tests are elevated. He also has “early morning stiffness” that lasted until early afternoon. In his presentation, the fatigue was the most debilitating.

It might be worth talking to your rheumatologist again and asking if it might be PMR or something else, especially if you’re in a lot of pain? There are so many different types of inflammatory arthropathies that it seems like it could be easy to accidentally pick one over the other, even for someone who’s aware it may not be top of mind. I have a different inflammatory arthritis, and I was evaluated at Mayo Rochester, and the then-fellow and now rheumatologist whose area of expertise is my condition, missed the diagnosis. So it can happen sometimes.

I hope you feel better soon.