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Has anyone experienced a fever with PMR?
My husband was diagnosed with PMR after 3 months of unrelenting shoulder and hip/thigh/buttocks pain following an emergency gallbladder surgery. He is 85. He had immediate relief from the 20mg of Prednisone prescribed.
During the 3 months after surgery he experienced fevers about every week to 10 days and last night had his first fever after starting Prednisone. Today he is fine and back to "normal". He is being treated by our family doctor who has seen about 10 cases of PMR during his career. He knows about the fevers and said it is one of the symptoms, but it concerns us. The wait for an appointment with a Rheumatologist is about 6 months if they indeed are even taking new patients.
Has anyone experienced fevers with PMR? If so, how long did they last?
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A mild or low grade fever is "sometimes" a symptom of PMR but not always. In medicine, it is better to never say "always" about anything.
A risk of being on Prednisone is that it will suppress a fever that is being caused by an infection. People show up in the emergency room with infections made worse because of treatment delays when they don't have a fever.
A person having fevers while on Prednisone should have a prompt medical evaluation.
There's some theories that PMR can be triggered by a virus. I think mine was triggered by a mild case of covid. Even a mild virus can cause a low grade fever and also, sometimes a fever is just a sign that the immune system is active.