New to all this!

[sealine30]

My tail started in April 14 at 48 year old with sudden knee stiffness and excruciating shoulder and elbow pain and the muscle in between pain. Put up with it for a couple of weeks and then saw Gp who didnt look up or listen and 'diagnosed' a sprain Offered cocodamol and sent home, 3 days later i hobbled back to gp in tears saw a different doc who gave 5 days of 30mg pred, all symtoms resolved in 3 days but only lasted a few days after tabs stopped. long n short eventually got rhumatology appts and steroid injections that gave short term relief but no diagnosis. Jan 15 and I am now in a PMR study and on 15 mg pred and a week in almost all symtoms have eased. But have a head cold from hell that will not shift, it started before i started taking the pred and refuses to leave!

[PMRpro Ambassador]

I do wish that when they suspect it might be PMR they would look up the guidelines for best practice! Five days of pred won't do anything in PMR - 5 WEEKS won't either! Injections are only ever going to work short term - but with all that they had the diagnosis in their hands! At least you are now in the right place - which study is it? And how did you get onto it given the gifts of the doctors you saw?

Have you tried inhaling? Something old-fashioned like Vick or Friar's Balsam in boiling water in a bowl and head over with a towel over your head - no side effects (except a red face) and can achieve a lot!

Looking forward to hearing how you get on.

[sealine30 in reply to PMRpro]

After a couple of visits to rhumatology and seeing either new qualified or trainees who also said I had tennis elbow at one point, the newby doctor took a full history and then went to her consultant with a whole raft of stuff from psoriasis? (actually a bit of dry skin on my knee) and a CRP of 342 (also misread from notes) so consultant actually came to see this wonderful specimin (me) and reviewed notes, asked a few more questions and told me it defo wasnt RA but thought i would be suitable for the PMR study, so really I am quite grateful to the student doctory person as at least I got noticed by the consultant and not sent away again with another injection.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to sealine30]

Which hospital?

The psoriasis bit wasn't so crackers - it is a favoured option to try to label PMR patients with psoriatric arthritis, it can be quite similar in presentation and can appear BEFORE the psoriasis. Lots of us have had that offered - with drugs that don't work in PMR of course! And the tennis elbow is just the bursitis that is a common factor in PMR. Often patients are diagnosed with PMR because they get a cortisone shot and other symptoms improve.

All's well that ends well though!