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Has anyone had poriasis of the skin?

Posted , 7 users are following.

marie_loui19398
marie_loui19398

Sorry about the spelling, but i was wondering if anyone had skin issues, with or before diagnosed with PMR?

 I had this poriasis on my elbows, and I never had it before, it came on right before my full blown pmr was diagnosed.

  Also I had some odd very small purple / mole size  pimples on my upper chest area.

My face was always breaking out right before this diagnose too.  Now all have disappeared from being on methylprednisolone

 I was diagnosed on 10/1/14.  reg pred did not seem to work for me . so my rheumy put me on 4mg 2x a day of methylprednisolone.

 Now I am down to 4mg am, and 2mg pm., supposibly equalling 5mg.

  He also told me to ask you all, ;  What is the smallest tablet in the uk, is it 1,2,4,?  He is from dublin, living here in the usa.  A very nice older gent!

He said please ask the brits this question!

thank you all for your time, its just a pleasure reading all your discussions, as I don't feel so alone with this dreaded pmr.

                                                                              Sincerley, Marie Louise

1 like, 14 replies

14 Replies

  • christine_fay
    christine_fay marie_loui19398

    Posted

    Yes about the psoriasis...however Doc denies this but I have had psoriasis before and the stuff I get with Pred is just a different shape and on my upper arms but definitely the same horrible sore itchy stuff. You can get Preds in 1mg I have half in this size and the rest as 5mg and I can make the dose up very easily like this.
  • barbara75814
    barbara75814 marie_loui19398

    Posted

    Glad you asked. Shortly before the PMR, I was afflicted with a terrible rash of sores which were so itchy at night I could barely sleep. This went on for some weeks while I sought a diagnosis from two different skin doctors, neither of whom knew what it was I had.

    I am still looking at scars left from the weird rash invasion. I strongly suspect that they were the forerunner of the PMR which then came on, although as I say, no doctor has said so. However, I think it "would figure."

  • barbara75814
    barbara75814 marie_loui19398

    Posted

    I forgot to mention this: the itchy rash was located almost entirely on my upper arms. No rash whatever on my back or environs. Would be interested in your thoughts....

    Barbara 

    • MrsO-UK_Surrey
      MrsO-UK_Surrey barbara75814

      Posted

      Barbara, at my very first rheumy consultation I was asked if I'd ever suffered from psoriasis and later learned that he was ruling out psoriatic arthritis, another auto-immune condition.  Not that I had any sign of a rash.

      The smallest Prednisolone tablet available in the UK is 1mg, and we are able to cut this in half to make 0.5mg doses when necessary. 

    • constance.de
      constance.de barbara75814

      Posted

      Many, many of us had skin problems with high doses of pred - from small spots, rashes, large blotches, even bleeding coming from the small viens ,etc. etc.  These settled down when my pred 

      intake went down.  

       

  • tina-uk_cwall
    tina-uk_cwall marie_loui19398

    Posted

    Hello Marie Louise, I have just looked up the drug that is sometimes called medrone. And I understand the doses are 2mg and 5 mg in England.

    i personally did not and do not suffer from any skin conditions so I can help you there. But I have been told and consequently do use a lot of body lotion and skin cream to keep my skin nice and soft thereby preventing dryness and cracking. All best wishes, christina 

  • larchan
    larchan marie_loui19398

    Posted

    Hi Marie Louise-

    I have had Psoriasis on my elbow- just one side- since my Dx 9 years ago. I use a cortisone cream when it flares up and in between use  lots of Philosophy Pure Grace lotion and it hasn't spread any further than just above my wrist. It is rough and the little hair on that area is not soft either. I have various skin issues that seem to come and go- like a bout of shingles, lichen sclerosis and the purple pimple like growths you mentioned in my groin area which also come and go. We have to look at ourselves a immune compromised, meaning that we are open to just about any opportunistic infection in all our body systems: be it respiratory, skin and other organs. We Tx them as they appear. Try to rest into the Dx as stress makes everything worse and further weakens our immune sysytems. By resting into it I mean that I try to accept it as part of the curse of PMR but I just treat each issue with the best dr./meds we can find as it comes and don't look to far ahead with dread- taking it all a day at a time.

    This is how I go along each day and I hope it can help others.

    • marie_loui19398
      marie_loui19398 larchan

      Posted

      Your so right, to try to take it all one day at a time.  Its just so overwelming!  thanks for your kind words~
  • EileenH
    EileenH marie_loui19398

    Posted

    The smallest pred tablet available in the UK is 1mg.

    For all of you out there with rash problems - particularly the ones who say it is like psoriasis: is your dx of PMR correct? Did you have the dramatic response to 15mg pred? PMR and psoriatric arthritis can present almost identically and you can have psoriatric arthritis without having had psoriasis before, it can sometimes appear at the same time as or even after the PMR smptoms. The primary difference is that PA doesn't respond as well to pred and responds better to other more conventional DMARDs which have different side effects and doctors are happier to leave patients on them for a long time. 

    On the other hand, the autoimmune component of PMR can lead to you developing allergies. In my case I developed an allergy to something in wheat - I had a rash that was very like that in dermatitis herpatiformis which is a form of coeliac disease. It does improve with high enough doses of antihistamine - and I only get it a few weeks after eating wheat. That was the problem - it didn't happen at the same time but realising a carb-freeweight-loss diet stopped it was the first stage! A higher dose of pred stopped it enough to allow me to indulge occasionally in wheat - but now I'm on 4mg it is back thought not as bad as when I ate wheat every day. Going without wheat isn't too awful though and anyway - very low carbs helps the pred weight gain!

    • christine_fay
      christine_fay EileenH

      Posted

      I have tried gluten free and wheat free but in the end it was lactose in milk that seemed to suddenly cause problems. I have been on Lactofree dairy for 4 months now and any time I make the mistake of having normal milk in tea I get a very strong bad reaction.... I would never have guesed this before the Prednisolone.
    • EileenH
      EileenH christine_fay

      Posted

      Mine isn't gluten - I can eat other grains and couldn't eat the UK gluten-free flour that was made from washed wheat starch. It is definitely something in ordinary "hard" wheat - French bread is K, it is made from a soft wheat! I even found a whole article saying teh same thing on the NHS site. 

      Are you OK with hard cheese? Here where I live all cheese comes with info about lactose content and there are loads of soft cheeses made lactose-free - high rate of coeliac and lactose intolerance here in the mountains. 

  • marie_loui19398
    marie_loui19398

    Posted

    Thank you Eileen!   I am starting with a new rheumy next month, because I had to change my health insur./ benefit plan.  so I will hopefully get a new opinion, maybe it is PA.  what is dmards??

      I also tested positive for lupus, but my rhuemy said he did't think I had it???

      we'll see what my new doc says~

     

    • EileenH
      EileenH marie_loui19398

      Posted

      Yes - I would be looking forward to hearing another opinion there!

      DMARDs - disease modifying antirheumatic drugs. They work for many sorts of inflammatory arthrtitis including rheumatoid arthritis but do very little (nothing) for PMR. If they work it was probably because it wasn't PMR...

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