Does anyone have hand pain?

I'm back to 20 prednisone after a 2 year taper to 0. Within a couple of weeks of 0, I felt like the tin man. I'm supposed to taper to 15 tomorrow but still feel some hand pain, slight but there. Otherwise the prednisone worked its magic almost instantaneously and all the pain and stiffness vanished. Is hand pain common?

[PMRpro Ambassador]

A study has recently been done and - gosh - they found that, yes, hand pain is common in PMR (could have told them that on the basis of observation on 3 forums!). I had bad hand and foot pain with PMR. I (and the GP) thought the hand pain was repetitive strain injury - but it was tendonitis and synovitis and both have been known for some time to accompany PMR. It took a few months to resolve fully but it did go. Same with the foot pain - that felt as if a giant was squeezing my feet hard.

Since your pain returned so fast after stopping pred it does suggest that this is a flare (do to reducing too fast/too far) not a relapse (the PMR autoimmune bit was in remission and has started up again) and that would mean that your reduction down to about 10mg can be fairly speedy as a lowish dose was enough to control it before you stopped altogether.

[Hidden in reply to PMRpro]

I did just what you did- gaily got down to tiny doses of Pred after 2 years and thought my journey was over and my disease gone. When it recurred I had hand pain and stiffness which I had not had before. I look back at 2 mgs of Pred with misty eyes, parked here on 10mgs 2 years later. There's nothing clever about getting off Pred unfortunately. We have to take sufficient for the day! My hands are much better now btw. Stay upbeat. i know you do tons for PMRUK. Maybe God wants you to stay supporting us! X