Dr suspects PMR

I feel for you. My PMR seemed to have been triggered by my lumbar spinal fusion 4 1/2 yrs ago when I was 58. Felt fine & progressing well after surgery for the first 5 wks, then WHAM, all the pain started. Took me 7 mos. to get diagnosed & treatment with prednisone started. I’m one of the weird people that it took more than 15-20 mg of prednisone to get mine under control. Had to take 40 for a month before I could taper. I was down to 2 mg last summer, but had a knee replacement in October, then another in January, & that one triggered a flare. Had to go back up to 11mg, & am slowly working my way down again.  I know how hard it is to deal with recuperating from  surgery and having to deal with this new disease. My biggest advice to you is rest, rest, rest.  So hard to do when you’re used to being active. It does get better but you really need to take care of yourself and slow down. Good luck! 

It does seem that you need to take your pred in a split dose, and probably at least for the first few weeks 20 mg total will be more effective.  Once the inflammation is cleared up and all you have to do is make sure each day's new load of inflammatory cytokines is mopped up by pred you will be able to start a slow taper to a lower dose.  Heed Eileen's warning about pacing.  You are a poorly bunny right now and need to be kind to yourself.  There is the additional factor that on pred we look quite well so others may expect more from us than we really should be doing.  Just remember how after surgery you couldn't do much.  This is kind of the same, only it's invisible.  Google the spoon theory for a description of how we should perceive our capabilities during our years of PMR. 

All the best.

good morning Angela Welcome to The Forum listen I don't know a whole lot about PMR I've been doing study and research for the last 4 months I started taking Prednisone for months ago they started me off with 20 mg per day now I've been reading everybody's comments and I've come to the conclusion that every time they drop me down I get worse they've got me on 7.5 now saying that is causing my ribs and stuff to fracture which is a lie my osteoporosis is out of control I've got bursitis in both hips and one shoulder my legs my feet my arms my hands my elbows my knees everything hurts me I'm fighting with the VA I've been doing a lot of research over the last few days so I have a lot of major questions for my doctors when I go back I know that the osteoporosis has caused me to fractured ribs I'm worried about my hips however back to your dosage of your Prednisone I never knew that you could take some in the morning and take some at night that's probably why I'm not sleeping at night so that just gave me more information there to deal with them I hope you feel better. I'm not going to lie to you and is very painful they won't even give me pain medication once a week I go to the hospital for a morphine shot sometimes twice a week because I get too bad so I've learned not to overindulge and exercising doing too much walking or sitting in one place or standing in one place for very long you can overdo it and not even know it until the following day or even later that evening so try to take it easy try to stay relaxed and do what you can but don't overindulge I'll keep you in my prayers sweetie God bless

Hi Angie. From what you described the diagnosis of PMR sounds highly probable. I have had two bouts with PMR and both times different docs told me the same thing about prednisone; that for PMR patients initial doses of 15 mg works for some, but 20 mg works for most all of us unless there are additional issues such as GCA etc. My hunch is that you probably needed to start at 20mg. Good luck.