PMR with joint pain in hands

Hi Everyone,

About 8 weeks ago I had swollen knuckles which were very painful early in the morning. The pain and swelling subsided during the day and there was no pain by night-time. In the morning i could not close my fists. I went to my GP who said it might be Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). These are indeed classic symptoms. The blood test were negative for both markers which happens in 25% of RA cases. I upped my pred from7 to 9 and the swelling has gone, but there is slight pain in the morning. I only mention this because these symptom might be RA and maybe you should check with your doctor and get your bloods tested for RA markers. I'm hoping I don't have it!

I get this on occasion.  No rhyme nor reason, although I haven't 'analyzed' the cause in terms of something I did the previous day,  It may be that I overworked my hands the day before.  It appears one day and disappears a day or two later, I would describe it as stiffness in my hands when rising which lessens throughout the day,

Hi Nancy, I have had PMR for about 1 1/2 years and just alter the dose as I feel like it I quickly went down from 15mg to about 5mg and have more slowly got down to a very low amount, sometimes 1mg sometimes 1/2mg and recently for 4 days none.However it has started to come back,i.e.the stiffness etc and only recently it has effected my hands as you say especially at night and in particular the small finger on my right hand which gets better during the day but is always a little bit stiff and painful if I stretch it.I am only on 1/2 mg at moment and don't want to up the dose if I can avoid it.I seem to get odd pains or aches in lots of different places at different times, it's all rather odd.

My hands hurt all the time. Here is what is wrong with mine. Maybe you fit one or more of these.

PMR

osteoarthritis 

rheumatoid arthritis (possibly)

trigger thumb

carpel tunnel sydrom

I just got the trigger thumb and carpel tunnel fixed in my right hand and will get the left hand done at the end of summer. I am taking an arthritis med for the rheumatoid arthritis and I recently started to taper off and my pain returned so I'm back on that again. And if I'm late taking my pred in the morning then the first place I feel pain is my hands and forearms.

I had severe hand pain before diagnosis that then slowly faded with 15mg pred. It was mostly tendonitis in my fingers and although there was some synovitis I wouldn't have said it was joint pain. I also had tendonitis that stretched from the outer aspect of my elbow to the inside of the wrist - we thought it was RSI due to too much typing! I also had foot pain.

Hi Nancy. I experience the same thing and mainly in my Right hand and wrist. It's not painful really, just stiffness and weakness. It's difficult to make a fist initially, but all improves once I get moving. My rheumatologist says it's possibly early onset RA, but all sets of tests have been negative for that so far. I don't have any swelling so don't believe it is RA. She says that PMR does not affect the hands or feet, however a recent large study by the Mayo clinic says otherwise if I remember correctly.