upper back painm
Posted , 10 users are following.
Hi has anyone else had severe upper back pain reaching to the rib cage with PMR. Am in the middle of flare and not sure if this is new or if I have strained muscles as rising is a problem
0 likes, 12 replies
bob73443 gillian_25383
Posted
I have had upper back and rib pain ever since staring the PMR. If I lay back on a hard floor, my backbone is very painful. The pain seems to spread along the lower right rib. My sternum is also affected.
I think that the symptoms of the back pain have increased since lowering my dosage of prednisone from 20 mg to 8 mg per day, but I'm not sure.
That's my experience.
All the best,
gillian_25383 bob73443
Posted
lodgerUK_NE gillian_25383
Posted
Why did you have to come off pred?
gillian_25383 lodgerUK_NE
Posted
tina-uk_cwall gillian_25383
Posted
regards, tina
gillian_25383 tina-uk_cwall
Posted
tina-uk_cwall gillian_25383
Posted
i understand that it is recognised now that rib pain is a symptom of pmr along with hand and wrist pain. Regards, tina
gillian_25383 tina-uk_cwall
Posted
faye______00403 gillian_25383
Posted
if the pain is PMR or something else. We all have pain of some kind,
somewhere and to have to guess is really another kind of pain to have to
deal with......
pauline36422 gillian_25383
Posted
caroline83483 gillian_25383
Posted
Drs can't tell me why. Had several tests and x-Rays ..no abnormalites
found. Worse when I am tired.
EileenH gillian_25383
Posted
To return to the back pain - there is something called myofascial pain syndrome which is very often found alongside PMR. It takes the form of trigger points in pairs on either side of the spine: in the shoulders, about rib level and in the lower back where the dimples are on a baby's bottom. These trigger points are concentrations of cytokines, the same substances that cause the pain and stiffness of PMR but in PMR they are all over the body.
They can be reduced by cortisone injections around that area - but also using manual techniques of mobilisation which can be done by physiotherapists or sports massage therapists for example which would be better for you probably. They can be felt as hard knots in the muscles which tense around them to try to prevent the pain - which in itself causes pain. Warmth helps in the short term but the only way to get long term relief is proper treatment. The spasmed muscles can be tight around nerves and this gives rise to referred pain in the areas supplied by those nerves. Deal with the spasmed muscles and the rest of the pain improves. I had it and they used both cortisone/muscle relaxant injections and mobile moblisation. I also got a lot of benefit from Bowen therapy though whether Bowen alone will get rid of the entire problem I don't know.
If what you have is PMR you are not so much in a flare as the inflammation is back because you have had to stop the pred. Methotrexate rarely does much for pure PMR - it MAY help people get away with a lower dose to manage the inflammation but on its own it doesn't. If it alone worked I'm sure they'd use it for most of us. Inability to get up out of a chair (or bed) is very characteristic of PMR.