Has anyone had any success with using physical therapy to help with stiffness and limited range of motion?
I’m not sure if my stiffness is the PMR returning, or if it’s related to being less active during the course of the disease and treatment over the last year.
I do Pilates in a class with just my husband. We get lots of one to one and tailored exercises. I feel that it does help my flexibility.
Some do, some don’t. I can’t say it helps me a lot, same old same old pain, but at least it should help movement, stretching, pulling, etc. but so many physios overdo it, and you end up with more pain for a couple of days. Try it and see!
Like SheffieldJane, I do Pilates, after having to give up years yoga because of pmr. Pilates really does help. I walk everywhere too and take stairs instead of lifts. My knees complain but it keeps me mobile.
I think the stiffness is because your PMR is returning/ has never really gone away. One year is a very short duration compared to average of 5.9 years .
Re exercise, it is often mentioned on this forum.
Pilates, tai chi, aquarobics (don’t do everything the first few times) walking....all of this starting small and gradually build up.
What I noticed with my pmr is that I get painfully stiff if I sit too long, but painfully stiff if I'm up walking (even at slow pace) for more than 30 minutes. Some days, I only have to be up for a few minutes.
My stiffness is the worst when I get up from sitting for awhile, especially on a car seat or sofa, where my rump is lower than my knees. It isn’t particularly bad in the morning, though that seems to be very common with PMR. And I can ski almost all day, though I now ski easier runs than I used to, because if I fall, it’s really hard getting up.
I guess I’m fortunate, compared to many others. But I still don’t like being hunched over and creaky like an 85 year old when I’m only 65.
I had PMR for over 5 years before I was offered pred and I had to manage life in other ways. I had belonged to a gym when PMR really bit - I'd had vague stiffness and a step class for older ladies I supported in the hope of them not losing it had become increasingly difficult - I hadn't the spring to get up onto the step comfortably! But suddenly I wanted to use the cross-trainer at the gym to get ready for the ski season and I couldn't - after a minute my thigh muscles just cramped and the pain was excruciating, it went when I stopped and came back when I started again. Typical claudication - but I didn't know then what I know now! I thought I was just unfit, getting older. And that was what the GP said too.
I switched to a different gym, one with a pool and a lot of daytime classes aimed at housewives and the retired. I worked freelance, from home, I could choose my hours. Every day, Mon-Fri, I did an aquafit class, at my level. A level that didn't leave me unable to move next day - I started very low key and built up very slowly. If I was tired I didn't do the entire class, I might not use the woggles or the boards, I listened to my body. After about a year I was keeping up with everyone. After a class I could move relatively normally - in the morning I fell out of bed into a swimsuit and joggers, crawled to the car and showered at the gym. I couldn't climb out of the pool - I HAD to use the steps into and out of the water. But one or two days a week I was able to do a Pilates class or Iyengha yoga having done the aquafit, I couldn't without. The Pilates was a fantastic help over time - but that too had to be at my level, not any one else's. I had a fairly normal ife, I thought. But unless I could drive there and not walk far, I couldn't go.
Some years later I had a big flare after being ill - and, wrongly, was stopped from driving. In the end it turned out I shouldn't have been but it brought home to me just how limited my life had become. Without the car I was housebound and couldn't get to the gym - and I seized up altogether. I managed to get here to our flat in a ski village - and I could just manage to walk to the ski bus. I got my gear to the store room at the bottom of the hill so I could walk there without skis and boots - and, as at home, crawled there. After a single stagger down the shortest run I could move a bit better - and by the time i finished after an hour or two I could walk home normally. The hip action in skiing was ideal it seemed to mobilise PMR hips!!
But let me be clear: these exercise approaches kept me mobile. They didn't improve the constant pain or any of the other symptoms. Only pred did that. And exercise made me even more exhausted than the PMR already did.
Wow! What a story. You are amazing in your resilience and determination. Can I be when I grow up??🤣😂😁
See - I don't think I was! Nice of you to say so though 
Wow. That’s a long painful road you’ve been on.
I’m not as badly impacted as many. I have continued to ski, both down-hill and cross-country, through treatment and since. I dont feel pain or stiffness while skiing, but only after inactivity. I still hike in the mountains, though slower uphill than usual and stepping up onto a rock or log is NOT fun, and with a backpack would be impossible. I also walk about a mile around my neighborhood when I feel the need to move between ski outings. So I’m active about three active days a week. I guess I’m lucky. If I didn’t sit down, to read or watch TV, I might not know I had PMR!
But, getting up from sitting on the floor is almost impossible. I have to roll over into elbows and knees, push my rump into the air and ROCK up onto my feet. The heels of my hands hurt too much to push up with them.
I am NOT a good candidate for exercise classes at a gym. We are retired and don’t stay in one place for very long. If a PT designed a course I could do at home, or if I found a video program that I could take from place to place, that MIGHT work. Any video suggestions?
I found some isometric exercises for RA sufferers online, and will give them a try.
I also have a stair-stepper gathering dust in storage that I could dig out and dust off. Might be what I need to get my hinges uncreaky.
I have no access to a suitable gym or classes here where I live now and I miss them. We are also away a lot - so a series of 10 classes which is what I could access once or twice a year means I'd miss some. It is a question of finding the thing that works for you and you enjoy. Going to a warm pool and walking and doing aquafit type movements is good though (if i had one...).
I really don’t like swimming, or even getting wet, especially in winter. Unless it’s a hot tub. 😊
No, me neither! It's getting the courage suitably screwed up that is hardest!!! But I can't be bothered with a swimsuit even for the beach - especially with PMR, lycra is a PITA...
I did isometric exercises from an RA website, IN the hot tub, and the combination really seemed to help.
Or my PMR flare is resolving on its own. Hard to know.
PITA?
Group therapy for arthritic pain including PMR
Is it pmr?
Pmr
Pmr
