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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
I’m working with my internal medicine ANP for the most part. She has put in a referral for a rheumatologist, but it can take up to or more than a year in this area to get an appointment. And I have to have a referral. I still haven’t heard anything regarding that. I do plan to ask my ANP if we can try a trial period of prednisone to see if my symptoms improve. I also have bloodwork coming up in August, and that might help if anything has changed. My blood pressure readings have dropped significantly since this started—80s/50s is now my normal range, and sometimes lower. Considering that, I should be able to tolerate the steroids’ hypertensive effects.
Thank you—your message was very helpful.
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You’re welcome. I hope you’re able to get some relief and answers soon.
I came across this article as well if it might help: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5911650/
Other than a trial of prednisone, it mentions an ultrasound being a possible diagnostic tool as well. (But in my area it can also take months to get an ultrasound…)
That’s a good idea to discuss a trial of prednisone; I hope the ANP will be receptive to it. Given what you’ve said about it being so difficult to get through the day…and if the pain is severe, it seems worth a try. If it is PMR, the pain and fatigue can become severe. And it occurs so often with GCA, which can cause a serious risk of blindness and a risk of stroke. That’s what we were most afraid of with my dad when we were struggling to get him treatment. He did have a stroke two weeks after receiving the official diagnosis, but we’ll never know if it was related to the PMR/GCA or not because by then he’d already started a lower dose of prednisone from his PCP.
I’m not trying to be so doomsday >_