Skin infections while on Prednisone

Hi @charlena, I think it takes an experienced rheumatologist to actually diagnose PMR (my non-medical training opinion). When I had my first occurance of PMR I let it go for too long and was barely able to walk. My wife had to drive me to my doctor appointment. The doctor setup an appointment with the rheumatologist who actually diagnosed the PMR and put me on 20 mg prednisone with a taper off schedule after a few months. Took me three years to get off of the prednisone.

My second occurance I had to tell my primary care doctor I thought it was PMR not carpal tunnel when I started having arm and hand pain come back. I was wrong...I found out after meeting with the hand doctor at the clinic I have carpal tunnel in both hands, as well as my PMR is back. After reviewing my medical history/diagnosis for PMR she put me on prednisone and as part of her exam, she brought in some interns and did a show and tell on PMR and carpal tunnel. So, I'm guessing a lot of doctors just plain don't have the "elderly health issues" experience. (NOT saying you are elderly! PMR just likes us more normally).

Happy Friday! Hoping for a PMR pain free day for all of you.

John

i could be so very wrong but i think the meds that are given to help our rheumatoid and psoriatic diseases are good but not specific for our diseases. hopefully they are still trying to work out different meds that will truly work. i think the prednisone will work for other problems but we need another medication that is specific for rheumatoid and psoriatic. (whatever meds that are out now do not seem to do what is needed and the side affects are not acceptable. keep dancing with a smile.

absolutely. i think the practicing mds are not in the research specific areas and mostly go by what is taught. and by the way, has the medical field changed enough with educating the doctors? this is not meant to demean in any way. why can't we develop SPECIFIC blood tests for diagnosing as an example? i am sure there are other patients that have many good ideas in this area and not just me. i am referring to rheumatologists as well

i think when your immune system identifies threats and not just medically but EMOTIONALLY AND MENTALLY, your body responds to activate a protective mode and thus brings on the overreactions such as the swelling, pain and etcs. so, perhaps diagnosis such as PTSD, and other related EMOTIONS that are happening to the body on a fairly constant level can contribute to the immune system reactions. i really, really would like feedback on this please.

it sounds like you have just started to "do the dance" with trying to properly diagnose your medical problems. you must have patience and continue to believe in yourself. there are many doctors with many different personalities. they would be this way even if they were not doctors. we are here, and with you. keep writing.

Absolutely - I am sure that my body responded violently to a period of severe stress that I went through just prior to being diagnosed with PMR. I asked my doctor about that probability but she didn't think it had anything to do with it, but I'm not so sure. Since then I have been very careful not to get too emotional and overactive about issues, and so far so good.

John, the reason I asked that question is that my husband went through 4 Rheumatologists of which none of them diagnosed PMR. In fact, none of them diagnosed my husband with anything. The 5th Rheumatologist (the one he currently sees) diagnosed him on the first visit. The main reason I am concerned is that my husband's mother had some type of muscle disease which we do not know what it was. We have mentioned this to all the Rheumatologists he saw and none of the first four seemed interested in diagnosing him period. His current doctor seemed really anxious to diagnose him with PMR (an easy way not to have to delve or look further into symptoms perhaps). The prednisone does help him, he is on 5 mg. qd, which is not a lot. I guess the only way we will be able to find out what his mother had is to petition the court and obtain her medical records. I am so happy Mayo provides this and so many other forums. I enjoy being a part of them and enjoy all the feedback. Thanks to all who contribute!!

I'm not sure if it's an option for your husband but Mayo Clinic is really good at diagnosing hard to diagnose health issues. They use a team approach and have a lot of specialists and testing to get to the bottom of your health issue. If you would like to seek help from Mayo Clinic, please call one of our appointment offices. The contact information for Minnesota, Arizona and Florida can be found here:

This video might be helpful to you - What happens when you have a disease doctors can't diagnose TED talk by TED Fellow Jennifer Brea who became progressively ill with myalgic encephalomyelitis, commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome:

John

@barbararene, Hi, Barbara. I was on prednisone for another reason - 5mg daily for 8 years. I never had any joint pain before, but when tapering under doctor supervision, I developed awful nagging pain that I had never before experienced. It took 3-4 weeks for my body to readjust to the tapered dose of prednisone and for that pain to go away.
Rosemary

My husband has doctors at both Emory and Vanderbilt, who also use a team approach, and we are happy with the results. The doctors at Emory saved his life several years ago. We only use "local" doctors for primary care, but that, too, is about to be "supplemented" with a primary care doctor from Emory. My husband's CPK level is never in the normal range, although it's not extremely high. The rheumatologist is never concerned, but his dermatologist IS concerned about it. In fact, the dermatologist was the doctor that said to him, "I'm afraid there is an underlying muscle disease that is going to rear its ugly head", and referred him to his current rheumatologist. He had an MRI or CT scan and rheumatologist advised nothing out of the ordinary was seen. This, I feel, was the reason for the PMR diagnosis.......