Hip problems from PMR
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I have had PMR for the last 3 and a half yrs. So far, I reduce Prednisolone on a weekly basis by 1mg. My GP almost allows me to self medicate with his overview. If I get a flare up, I up the dose, and then reduce it weekly thereafter.
For the past few months I have been having problems with my left hip. It is very painful, and, I can hear and feel a lot of clicking in the joint. The pain is mainly centre to rear. My GP says he doesn't think it is requiring a joint replacement, and is reluctant to send me for an x ray, becuse of the high dose of radiation involved.
Has anyone else out ther had the same.?
1 like, 5 replies
pat38625 alanh
Posted
MrsO-UK_Surrey alanh
Posted
You haven't said what your present steroid dose is, but after 3.5 years, I'm assuming you are on doses in single figures - at that level, reducing by 1mg on a weekly basis is much faster than is recommended. Plus self-medicating and feeling the need to keep increasing and reducing the dose means that you are either reducing by too large an amount and too soon each time. Yo-yoing the dose like this can prove very problematic and confusing for the body.
I suggest that you ask your GP to refer you to a rheumatologist to investigate your hip pain further. If you haven't had a DEXA scan to check for any steroid-induced thinning of your bones, you should ask for one. You may simply find that a cortisone injection may help with your pain. If you haven't been given a Vitamin D blood test, that should also be carried out - any deficiency can lead to pain similar to that of PMR. Many of us have been found to be deficient, needing a short course of high dose pure Vit D3 to return our levels to normal. The added bonus is that the extra Vit D will allow more calcium from your diet to be absorbed into your bones for further protection.
Jaydy alanh
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EileenH alanh
Posted
Like MrsO - I'm always amazed at these GPs who can see through skin. There's so many - I really can't imagine why hospitals bother to use x-rays at all. It all depends how many you have had in the past - or maybe you fly to the USA every week? My consultant medical physicist husband says to ask the GP to give you an odds-ratio of the risk of you developing cancer from a single hip x-ray compared to not having one! It isn't up to a GP to make that sort of decision, the radiation protection experts calculate that sort of risk and say if a patient is OK to have simple x-rays - its peanuts compared to radiotherapy and said husband has been there and they still give him x-rays when they are required. The GP is right in the sense an x-ray should only be done when required - but he isn't an orthopaedic expert. He is a general practitioner.
However - my tip would be trochanteric bursitis or possibly even piriformis syndrome if the pain is at the centre back and into the buttock and actually that CAN be associated with PMR. PMR often is accompanied by shoulder and hip bursitis which responds to the higher doses of pred and as you reduce it surfaces again. Sometimes it gets so bad that more than oral pred and physio is needed and local cortisone injections deal with it very well - that achieves a high local steroid level and combats this localised inflammation without affecting the rest of the body.
I've had it, physio didn't do anything but 2 cortisone shots about 3 months apart got rid of it for about 2 years, it started again and a single shot did the job.
alanh EileenH
Posted