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Precursor symptoms to PMR?
I was diagnosed with PMR a month ago, after a quick onset of classic symptoms. It hit fast and hard! But, before that, I had been struggling for almost a year with left leg pain (hamstring area) that referred to my knee, very painful, limping etc. I had been seeing an osteopath and massage therapist for treatment. I didn't recall any injury to the hamstring. Now that I've been on prednisone 20 mg/day for a month, my PMR symptoms are slowly resolving, but interestingly the hamstring issue is completely gone! I wonder if it could have been some kind of precursor, or very low level inflammatory issue? Has anybody else noticed 'warning signs' of an impending flare of PMR?
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How did they diagnose your GCA? I have medical tests in a couple of days and believe they should investigate this in addition to PMR.
I went to the emergency room after losing vision in one eye for a few seconds. While I was there they ran a LOT of tests, checking for stroke and other problems. Also while I was there I had more episodes of losing vision temporarily. I think the temporary vision loss and relatively high values for the sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-Reactive Protein tests were the main indicators, plus the other symptoms I had like jaw muscle fatigue, low grade fever for several weeks, and scalp tenderness. They immediately started giving me IV infusions of high dose prednisone, and they did a temporal artery biopsy less than 24 hours after I went to the hospital. That came back positive for GCA.
I am so glad they were able to save your sight.
Did they do a PET scan on you during that time?
Thanks. The vision problems were scary.
They didn't do a PET scan. They did an MRI of my head and an ultrasound to check my aorta, plus a lot of other tests - EKG, ECG, etc.
Aside from one inflamed shoulder, on and off, my hamstring was the first weird sign. Severe charley horse playing pickleball, It took 5 weeks to go away then full scale PMR hit.