New to pmr and prednisone

[Lukster]

I work in a busy restaurant with tourist from all over and am concerned about how damaging Coronavirus could be given I am on 20mg prednisone for 2 months now as newly diagnosed pmr in December 2019

[SheffieldJane]

I hope your employers are putting strict measures in place, you need to talk to them. This virus may hit you harder than it does other people. How are you? This seems to me to be a heavy physical job that would be incredibly hard with early PMR. Are you a young person?

[Hidden]

It wouldn't be my first choice. Your employer have a duty of care. Gloves and lots of handwashing. Good luck.

[HeronNS]

More than two months in you should be starting to taper your dose. How are you feeling?

[Lukster in reply to HeronNS]

What is standard tapering? It seems so tricky don’t want to be on prednisone but it did give me my life back

[Hidden in reply to Lukster]

There are guidelines that Dr's are supposed to follow but we go for the dead slow nearly stop (Dsns) version and reduce based on symptoms. See link below.

I should have imagined that after 2 to 3 months you should be reducing. I started at 15mg and after 6 weeks refuced by 1mg a month. It was fast and I flared. The usual is 20 to 15mg, 2.5mg max reduction in first instance if you can otherwise 1mg every 2 to 4 weeks.. But your Dr needs to plan this all with you ASAP.

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

[HeronNS in reply to Lukster]

Just to add to Poopadoopy's comment, we are never looking to taper to zero. We are started on a dose which is more than we will need long term, mostly to mop up the built up inflammation and make sure symptoms are controlled as well as they can be. The, after four to six weeks, we start to taper down to find the lowest possible dose which maintains that first best response. We have to go slowly in order to avoid pred withdrawal or flare of the inflammation which gives us pain. Once that lowest level is reached, and it can take months or even over a year, we stay at that dose for as long as it takes, every so often attempting to taper again until eventually the disease has gone into remission and we can taper to zero. By being at the lowest possible dose we can avert a lot of the potential side effects of long term steroid treatment. In fact the maintenance dose to keep PMR under control causes no more lasting effects than normal aging does. But it does give us back our life so we have to make sure doctors are not too keen to rush us off when we do get to that low dosage. Only we know when our disease is in remission.

A general rule of thumb, taper by no more than 10% at a time.

[Blearyeyed]

In your situation it is just very important to make sure that Hygiene and Disease Awareness is being taken seriously in your workplace by both employees and customers.

Make sure your employers properly advise everybody at work to follow the hand washing , face touching and body distance rules.

Have a sign in your window requesting customers to use the handwashing facilities when they arrive before seating.

Ask customers to remove their own serviettes or any paper products they use at tables to a bin provided at the end of their meals or drinks .

Have gloves to use and disposable antibacterial cloths while clearing tables or emptying bins for all employees then washing hands immediately after clearing tables and removing the gloves.

If people are showing signs of an infection , coughs , sneezes etc your employer should take up the option to refuse them service or have it as a written policy at the entrance that they will be asked to leave , this could deter customers whom have any sort of infection from carelessly putting their own desire over what is considerate to others.

Make sure the employer is regularly cleaning the bathrooms and sinks and a sign is posted in bathrooms asking customers and employees to clean up after themselves and put tissues in the bin while using the bathrooms.

The employer should also be more vigilant in sending home employees whom arrive at work with cold or flu like symptoms to prevent any spread of a virus.

If you employer hasn't got good guidelines in place , take the recommendations with you and ask if you can use them as it will make customers and employees feel more positive about using their restaurant and may even increase their customers. Have a meeting before work on what steps you will take. Explain it is so important to you because you are in a group that could be more susceptible to the virus because of the medications you need to take and that it may be helpful that all staff know that as they will be more understanding of why you need them to take the hygiene rules so seriously.

In some ways I wish these sorts of hygiene rules and consideration would continue beyond the end of the Covid 19 crisis , as in reality , they should be things that are followed in daily life anyway. If everybody was more Hygienic and Disease Aware in daily life , especially in public spaces, many of the other regular Diseases wouldn't run rife through the Community every year and we'd all have alot less illness that forced us to stay off work.

I heard someone on the News say that Hygiene rules should be thought of as the ' New Normal ' for some time to come , in reality it would be better if it became the ' New Normal ' full stop , as really it should have been the 'Old Normal ' too .

[navejasjoe]

For my wife having PMR, it means to her that her auto-immune system is all messed up. She knows that Coronavirus hits the most vulnerable people, those elderly and/or ailing. Not having a good immune system means she is one of the more vulnerable type of people. Every year we normally fly south to see the Indian Wells Tennis tournament. Because of CV, we canceled our plans - then we found out that the tournament was canceled to minimize the possibility of further spread of the disease.