Polymyalgia Rheumatica Prednisone

Oh how I know your feelings. PMR. It is not a good thing. And the predisone withdrawal is ugly. 2 years ago I was diagnosed with the PMR thing. Refused the predisone for 6 months until I could barely walk or get out of bed. I’m on the 14th month and I can’t get off of it Down to 2 mg but I’m in bad shape. FAT. Exhausted, very shaken, inside and out, as you know not real happy. Thanks for listening. Sandy

My PMR was hard to detect. I have back issues and the MRI confused the issues. Finally I said to my back guy could I try steroids to relieve the pain. He gave me a 7 day program. After 1 day I felt great. However, after the 7 day program my pain came back. One morning I woke up with terrible pain in my shoulder blades. I knew something more was wrong. My GP suspected PMR and looked to confirm with blood tests. He said he was surprised my sed. rate was only 29 not high enough for PMR. I decided to go to a rheumatologist. He said I had PMR. He explained that normal for men is 0-15 and so 29 is high and given my symptoms I definitely had PMR. He's started me on 5-10 MG of Prednisome. I decided to start at 10. After a week the pain is minimal and I'm golfing with no pain. I am going to try to go down to 5 mg and hoping to stay there for as long as necessary, which he indicated would be at least another 4-5 months. I'm worried about the long term side effects of 5 mg and would like to hear from people who have relied just on 5 mg for a long period of time. I feel much better all around on prednisome, it helps back and knee pain as well as my PMR. Without long term more serious side effect, I wouldn't mine staying on it. However, I have a bad family history of heart attack. Any advice?

I was dianosed 3yrs ago; w PMR started at 10mg pack; took about a year to get down to about 5mg but relapse and time time time, everytime got to 5, a relapse, only can go 1/2 mg per mo alternating
at 5 one day a4 next day for a month, then a 4mg for a monthe, then relapsed, back to 10.....now
third yr got way down to 3 but have to alternate days 3 then 4 Hard to get off that Prednisone...A
Miracle when you are in such pain at first....Hell to get off it.... March 2019 Linder

me again, oh, I got an ulcer, my Dr. said probably the prednisone; I would take at least a bite
of food w the medication....LInder March 2019

what were you put on to counter the side effects of prednisone??

Can plaquenil, methotrexate or cellcept be used to treat PMR (polymyalgia rheumatica)? I'm trying to get of steroids for pain and movement and seeking alternate treatment other than steroids.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to get off long term prednisone use to control aches and pains of the stopping of that medication? I'm taking it for inflammation Polymyalgia rheumatica.