I was watching a YouTube channel yesterday that had to do with women getting fillers on their face. The doctor was teaching a class and had a woman in the chair and he was marking up her face for the fillers and was extremely careful about showing exactly where needles cannot be hit on our face because it can upset the vascular system. He pointed to temporal artery and he also pointed to an area on the side of the nose but actually at the edge of the nose near eye corner .
The reason I am mentioning this is two years before I got diagnosed with GCA/PMR I had a basal cell removed from that exact point. When dr. did that Mohs surgery I felt like she was hitting the area with a brick. She had to go back three times to get a clean cut to make sure it was cancer free.
I am wondering how many people that got GCA may have had some type of procedure on their face prior to the diagnosis!!!
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Aleish
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I have been wondering about this recently. I got GCA after 1st. dose of Astra Zeneca. Doctors shrug off the possibility that the vax caused it, even though many people have come down with it (acc, to fb groups) even with Pfizer or Moderna. My rheumy had said it could be stress-related. I thought about this lately & yes, I had never been so stressed in my life, as I was after having rec’d the AZ vax, because I was under the impression that I was getting the Pfizer & the nurse did not tell me that she was injecting the AZ (here in Canada -Covishield, from India). All this happened during the controversy surrounding the AZ vax.
Since my Dx, I have not stopped researching GCA & trying to understand it & looking for the missing link.
So lately I thought about Botox.
i have had Botox injections, possibly going back 10 yrs or more for frown lines. Yes, it helped but even more, once I started having injections, my aura migraines ceased!
I didn’t have any Botox before contracting GCA, as we were all in a lock-down for over a yr.
So, could or did the Botox upset my vascular system? I have been thinking about this & wondering if any research has been done? Could this have caused the GCA? Who knows?
There is no one single cause of PMR/GCA - this is what i just wrote to someone else:
"Why do people develop PMR/GCA? No-one knows but it is postulated that all autoimmune disease results because throughout life our immune system is subject to insults that upset its functioning - everyone knows that a stressful job or other situation makes someone more likely to catch everything going. Those insults include illness, infection, trauma, physical and emotional stress, environmental and chemical factors including vaccines and even drugs. Is it coincidence that a/i disease has increased along with enironmental pollution and more stressful lifestyles? Eventually a factor is the straw that breaks the camel's back and the immune system goes haywire, turning on the host's own body and causing inflammation and tissue damage. What you are diagnosed with will depend on the type of damage and what reduces the symptoms.
If you have to develop an a/i disorder, then PMR isn't a bad one to be landed with. Unlike most a/i disorders it does burn out and go into remission sooner or later - but for only about a third of patients in under 2 years. Half are permanently off pred in under about 6 years - which suggests that half of us may be on it even longer, albeit mostly at a low dose. We have a few people on the forum who are still here north of 10 years - it DOES happen, but it isn't terribly common and forums by their nature tend to have members with problems. Once most people are off pred they sail off into the sunset and aren't seen again. You rarely hear the recovery stories."
The ongoing stress maybe laid a foundation - but the vaccine could well have been the factor that finally made the immune system flip. But it could have been the flu or shingles shot, the flu, shingles, Covid, an accident, a bereavement or anything else of that sort. The doctor was wrong to deny it - because rheumies are commenting they are noticing a lot of new post-shot patients, But to some extent it is coincidence, something did it, but you can't prove what.
Strangely enough I was part of a group talking to Keele Uni about PMR this morning and it was postulated that the disease could be attached to stress. I had cancer removed from my cheek six years ago - and the night after I'd been diagnosed with cancer I broke my back tooth take night in my sleep. However I also feel that, as I stopped full-time work about 14 years ago, I haven't been exposed to stress and I have found that in recent years I don't cope with it as well as I did.
Many on here would say that stress was a big factor in their PMR/GCA....whether it be physical or mental...and it's been talked about for a number of years. Strange it's being suggested as "something new" now!
My GCA certainly was, stress of coping with hubby with cardiac issues over a number of years. ... nothing else obvious to trigger it.
my pmr was the result * I think* of a bike accident. the car won. and I flipped over the hood when I was 71. (survived but battered) and then a week later a bout of stomach flu. I figured my immune system was finished fighting and became thoroughly confused and just attacked me! Also a friend (male) had hip surgery and then 3 weeks later Mohs on his face and then PMR. (no GCA. ) My husband has had a lot of stuff, pacemakers, bypasses. etc. and then quite healthy...but got his covid shot and Oral Lichen Planus in his mouth which is another autoimmune disease. I think the shot sent him over. But as PMR says. it can be anything.. he was ready to be sent over.... something else might have done it. norovirus or shingles or trauma. It's hard to get old!! BUT what a fun time it's been!
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