Excellent question!

I would say if taking prednisone relieves the pain ... that doesn't prove anything.

For example, prednisone helped my knee pain but knee replacements helped more.

Prednisone helped my lower back pain but imaging showed I have severe spinal stenosis.

Prednisone was the only thing that helped trigeminal neuralgia but surgery was eventually done.

All these things had inflammation and pain in common but they had very little to do with PMR.

I am diagnosed with multiple autoimmune disorders and prednisone was used for all of them at one time or another. Prednisone worked faster for these other autoimmune conditions than it did for PMR.

I had to take prednisone for 12 years for PMR. The other autoimmune conditions responded to prednisone and went into remission faster. I could taper off prednisone in a couple of weeks for the other autoimmune conditions after remission was achieved.

It doesn't have to be just one thing. It can be PMR along with something else. That was my problem ... It would have been better if it was PMR and nothing else. I wasn't even aware of some of my problems until I tapered off prednisone. Now I know and I'm trying to address the problems without prednisone.

No it was the combo of high inflammation numbers and that the prednisone worked almost immediately. Everything else was non classic but as we all know pmr hits people in different places. Some people have the arm and shoulder pain. This last flare up was just in my right leg/hip. Damn weird.