PMR and Vasculitis

Bob

The jury is out amongst the professionals at present.

When you were diagnosed with PMR, the person who diagnosed you should have told you all the symptoms of GCA and what to watch out for.   This is because, currently they call it a 'sister' illness.

If you think about it if the oxygen and blood supply are having difficulty getting into the muscles, it is arteries and veins that take that supply to those muscles.  

A small percentage of people with PMR can and do then get GCA, however it is a small percentage, just watch out for those symptoms.

A few patients with 'just' pmr and one of them includes a very close friend of mine who ran into problems with the toes turning red and then blue and after seeing her GP and telling him she had been asked to ask to see a Vascular Surgeon, yes it turns out she has vasculitis (never had GCA)  and is having an artery in the groin seen to this week.

Don't be worried, just be careful.

 

The actual translation of PAR is "many painful muscles due to inflammation ".Maybe vasculitis would come in if you also had GCA-but I do not know

Bob, GCA, the linked conditin to PMR, definitely comes under the vasculitis umbrella but the jury is still out as far as PMR is concerned, as Lodger has said.

​I have had both PMR and GCA, both now in remission, but I do have lingering signs of vasculitis symptoms in that my toes become red and inflamed from time to time.  My podiatrist is sure it is remnants of GCA.

​Yes, it's true that some autoimmune and inflammatory conditions under the vasculitis umbrella can lead to organ damage without correct treatment, but this is not the case with PMR, or at least I have never come across anyone yet who has succumbed to organ damage from PMR.  Of course, if the inflammation of PMR is left untreated, that can lead to all sorts of other nasties.

Everyone is confused Bob, but the upside is that PMR is generally not as serious as GCA and, for this reason, usually half the dosage of prednisolone is required in its treatment. It could well be that, to a minor extent, PMR patients might have  inflammation of their arteries but no-one is likely to find out about this unless it causes serious illness and investigation discovers this is so. Arms and legs can be affected for instance and blood pressure checks on all 4 limbs should be conducted as well as testing the pulses in the arms and legs and head areas. Patients with PMR usually only find out to their dismay that their arteries are inflammed when the narrow arteries in their head are affected as this is rather obviously very painful and happens quite quickly. Not much is known about these illnesses and I suspect that is why they often don't receive the best of care. I had PMR for about 6 years and managed, with difficulty, with rub on anti-inflammatory creams and a £100 massaging machine. One weekend, it flared up very badly and was accompanied by GCA symptoms which I was unable to manage myself so I had to accept prednisolone at this point despite my reluctance earlier. I wonder if I had taken the predenisolone earlier, it might have spared my the GCA which has been a terrible experience.