prednisone and life | Arthritis Information
brand new member and the message board is a huge help in my understanding of pmr. i was diagnosed by a gp in july, at 74 years of age, when i woke up and felt like i was run over by a truck. had a sed rate of 88 and neg. ra factor. he started me on 40 pred. and from the time i took the first pill, three hours later, i had wonderful relief. i am now on 5 pred. and experiencing pain in morning, of hips and knees, but usually it warms out so i can go on with my daily activiites. if it is real painful i will top it off with one naproxen. this usually lets me work outside shoveling snow, without too much pain, although sometimes i pay for it next morning. i have not wanted to up my dose of pred. but sometimes i wonder is this a good idea. i have thought i would keep it at 5 and top it off with the naproxen, if i could tolerate the day and what i usually do. i am very active and determined. any comments would be appreciated.
i was hoping for some advice whether i should up my prednisone, until i get complete relief or keep trying to withstand the morning pain, until maybe it might give up. i also am wondering if winter brings on more pain, with the storms and such. we have such hard winters that it seems like it might have an effect on arthritis sufferers of all kinds. I was on 5 and stopped completey after being on 5 a couple months (got my gp's ok to do that). Only took pred about 3 or 4 months. It was just awful for quite some time (the worst i ever felt) but eventually and very slowly (over a period of 4 to 5 months) i got better. I only took the anti-imflammatory and that got me thru. I supplemented with very high doses of fish oil and other natural anti immflamatories. Those take a while to work but today - as of last may- i am off all meds. I still have stiffness in my hips and my back muscles get so stiff it is still hard to turn over in bed. But i sure am glad to not have to take those meds and risk such awful side effects. The intolerable pain is gone. I can do most of the things i could do before. I still cant get on the floor - like to do sit ups but i have not tried that hard also!. I could take an alieve or something i guess but i have been trying to give my body a rest from meds. My advice is always try to get off the meds. But that is just me and my way of thinking. I just wanted my body to try to heal itself best it could. I think that most of the pain is from getting off the med and less from the disease (which could also include connective tissue disease - i think a lot of people have a combo of sorts and it takes years for the symptoms to all come together for a definate diagnosis - what my new rhumy says anyway - makes sense to me) Try some liquid magnessium - I like the Calm powder. It helps to relax muscles. Best of luck....Hi Cowgirl
I no longer have PMR but when I did there were times that I had to up the pred and as I came to realize, the pred does not cure the PMR it is only to give us relief from the pain so if you are in distress up the pred. Why suffer. Usually 1 mg will do the trick and you can ask your Dr. how long before you reduce again. I also come from a very cold climate but never found that winter affected me but I know of several others that it did. I had PMR for about 3 years but it took 2 years to diagnose so was on pred for 1 yr. I was still on 7 mg when the PMR left and I had 3 great pain free weeks before I started with fibromyalgia.
This is a great place to come for advice even tho it is very quiet in here right now. I wish there was one like this for fibromyalgia.
Wishing you the best and take care of yourself.
Hi Pat!
Ragnar
Hi Ragnar
I did try two different message boards with no success. The first one (I think it is the one you posted) I was treated like a mindless idiot the way the person spoke to me. Very condiscending It sure was not like our PMR board on the other site. There you could reach out and have 10 people respond in no time. On here I tried and left the message on for about 3 days with no response at all so I gave up and removed it. I go and read the old PMR board all the time and I miss everyone so much. I was going to post a response to your last message and then got carried away.
I am still in touch with Di. It has been a tough Season for her as you can expect. We write to each other about once a month and I try to send her some goofy jokes to make her laugh. She is a great person. She is still up on her mountain.
I am so glad you are off of the pred and hope you are still relatively pain free. Nothing like it aye. Love to take some of those trips with you and your wife. They sound great.
Have a healthy and happy New Year Ragnar. I miss the old gang terribly. Will try to keep in touch more often.
I have to run now.....I don't want to be late for my Birthday party. My granddaughter, daughter-in-law and I all celebrate on the same day even tho I am the original. They are later in the month.
Great to hear from you Ragnar.
Hugs
hi smartie and teedoff, smartie i love your handle, thankyou both for your experience . i will try to continue on and when the opportunity arrises go down another mgm. i am going through a very trying emotional time right now, and maybe that is why the pain is more than i think it should be. one never knows. anyway i am thankful for the information i get from this board. Hi Cowgirl
I've had pmr for 2 yrs. I started at 40mg and am currently on 2mg ( I did get down to 0.5mg in the summer, but had to got back up as the symptoms returned). I haven't taken Smartie's approach - if the meds give me my life back, then I'll take them. My understanding is that they do not act as direct painkillers, but that they reduce the inflammation, and by doing that reduce the pain.
You said you are having an very trying time at the moment - and if that were me, I wouldn't even think about reducung the pred. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but when I reduce the dose (and I taper it in the way Ragnar has described) I have about 10 days when I am bad-tempered, snappy and likely to burst into tears if anything (even slight) uosets me. I always lookmat my diary carefully before planning a drop, so that I do it when I have't got anything stressful happening. I sometimes even take myself off on my own for a few days to improve everyone else's life!
We are all differnt though, so this might not apply to you.
Hope things aren't too bad fo you
Margaret you know...margaret, i think that is very good advice, i had not thought about that, that it was not a good idea to reduce in times of lots of stress. i will go ahead and stay on good old 5 until most of this is over. the big "d" you know............
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