Physical activity - how much

My day begins EVERY morning at 4:30 am. I'm still very stiff in shoulders when I first get up. I feed our dogs; then 35 minutes of upper body exercises in our hot tub. Then 20 minutes of TENS on both shoulders. I am also dealing with dry eyes which is probably a product of Prednisone. To deal with that, I have heat mask that I put over my eyes for 20 minutes. I'm down to 5 mg pred and soon will go to 4 1/2. at 7:00 am I take our two dogs for a 2 mile walk and play in the dog park.

In answer to your question, I play golf two to three times a week and at age 73, I'm hitting the ball farther than most of the guys 10 years younger.

I know it's not true for everyone, but for me, I have no limits on the level of exercise to which I am limited and hope you are as fortunate.

Good Grief! What you have been doing/hope to continue doing is 'almost' too much for a young 'healthy' woman, let alone with someone having PMR!! Most of us are happy if we can get out of bed without help (at first), have a shower and get dressed. Going for a walk means 1/2 mile, lifting ANYTHING leaves us exhausted.

I have had PMR for 7 1/2 years and am now happy I can potter around the house, go for a 20 minute walk, enjoy a good meal out, etc etc. Don't expect too much too soon or you will flair.

Others will be along to give you advice. Some are lucky enough to have an easy time with PMR but most suffer between 2 - 6 years (25% even longer). Listen to your body, never 'push' yourself, learn to relax.

Take care and good luck!Constance.

All I can tell you is that when I am on the right number I am almost able to function properly again. I can lift my shopping, pick up my grandchild and even get back to the gym. So yes in my opinion you can get back to normal living and it is not too much to ask.

Good luck!

The answer is... nobody knows. It is very personal. Some people who were active before PMR usually recover quicker and can go back gradually to previous level of activity. Some are happy to just be able to take care of themselves. Until you try, you will not know. Very few ( including myself) were athletic before PMR and had no problem going back to the same level of activities after few months on pred. It has been almost 4 years, I am now at 3mg and walk 2-3 times a day to a total distance about 3 miles , go mountain biking 2-3 times a week for about 90 min each and swim 1.5miles in a n hour every week... For me, life is back to normal. I am 70, but that is just a number. My kids have hard time keeping up with me ( and I enjoy every minute of it 😃 ).

It very much depends on the person - some people are right back where they were before diagnosis but much more common is to find you can do maybe 50-70% of what you did before. A lot depends how long it was before you were diagnosed - in the 5 years before I was put on pred I had lost a lot of fitness and anything I did I had to "train" to improve significantly. The entire time I continued going to the gym - but not using machines, that didn't fit well with unmanaged PMR, but did an aquafit class every day followed by Pilates or yoga 2 or 3 times a week. It was that that kept me functioning at all with unmanaged PMR but I couldn't do the Pilates and yoga without the aqufit first.

I could lift a small grandchild (not mine, they are 18-20), shopping, a suitcase - but within limits and I can't do it repeatedly. I continued skiing for a long time - but it took me the first 2 months of the season to get back to the level I had been at the end of the previous season. Now I am aware of more limitations - but I am also a lot older and that also makes a difference.

Funny you should ask that now as I have been feeling stiff and less able to do what I normally do and was getting rather upset about it! For me, I think it is more about the cold, snowy weather and having retired, so my routines are all upset. I miss the activity level I had before PMR, but I'm grateful to still be able to carry on close to what I did before. I was just thinking I'd like to go back to stretching and yoga because when I jog (more of a shuffle jog really and only 2 miles) I feel all tight and have to stop to stretch the achilles (sp?) before and during. Magnesium does help that. I'm at 4 1/2 mg prednisone split in two doses, am and pm. I raked yesterday and moved a ton of furniture and tore up flooring this past week due to flooding (again) at the cottage...shop vac-d for12 straight hours nonstop too but that was a crisis. Ugh. I've read on here of the fellow who climbs huge mountains or others who bike long distances. I say do what your body lets you do!

PMR is life changing, it does not necessarily mean that you carry on as if nothing has happened and you need to be aware of this. If you overdo things PMR does tend to bite back. The steroids suppress the pain but that is all they do. It really is a matter of finding out how far you can go. There is no reason why you shouldn't do the things you used to do but you do need to be aware of the illness and take time to check that they do not cause problems. If you do find things are causing problems STOP and rest don't carry on. Just look after yourself.

I was lucky in that I was diagnosed quickly and was completely pain free and able to reduce my dose to nil with just a few glitches in three years. I was able to stand at the top of a slope too steep for lawn mowers with a strimmer round my shoulders and maintain my very large garden

I was fine for five years and then PMR returned with a vengeance. This time, although the pain relief was again 100%, I had a great deal of muscle weakness and heart thumping which badly affected my ability to live my normally energetic lifestyle. No strimmer and much less heavy gardening. Not only are we all different but unpredictable, too.

If you are feeling good then fine to live your normal life I would say but be prepared to adjust.