Pain med?

[Macadoo]

Today was first day on prednisone. I'm in lots of pain...can anyone recommend what they've taken to reduce pain while waiting for prednisone to kick in? 2 tylenols didn't help.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Unfortunately if it's PMR or GCA then nothing helps other than the Pred. It can take a couple of hours to kick in, but if you take it 8am or such, you should be okay by lunchtime.

If Tylenol didn't help, then it certainly sounds like PMR... as you refer to tylenol then I guess you're in States or Canada or maybe Aus or NZ?- it would help if you but that on profile please - different names for some medications in UK -and or course time zones.

[Macadoo in reply to DorsetLady]

Just updated profile..thanks for your response.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer in reply to Macadoo]

Thanks.

Maybe you need to leave a bit longer to kick in!

Let us know how go get on.

[Macadoo in reply to DorsetLady]

I will give the prednisone time to kick in.

[Hidden]

When it kicks in, if white/not coated then in another 90mins you should know at 50mg. No other pain killers help the PMR pain in our general experience. I was on opiates and NSAIDS like ibuprofen, for other conditions, at the time PMR started and then was diagnosed. I still had the pain and stiffness. Hold on. Hope it kicks in soon.

[Raven1955]

Usually a person has results from the first dose of prednisone within a few hours but I've also seen people on this forum who had a day or 2 before it kicked in. For myself it was about 6 hours and I was started at 20mg. Now it's 3.5 years later and I'm just getting down to 3.5mg. Hopefully your ride doesn't take that long. Once the prednisone kicks in you'll likely feel normal again. Resist the temptation to do everything physical at the same level and speed that you were doing before. It's an illusion.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

That's the point of PMR: nothing but pred works to relieve the pain for most people. With 50mg you should see a difference sooner rather than later but until then you must be patient.

How long is it since you took the dose/

[Macadoo]

7am...just over the past 10 minutes I'm noticing slight pain reduction...very welcomed!

[Macadoo]

Did you mention if you're taking Prednisone? Thanks for sending video.

[nickm001]

If it is PMR, your starting dose is very high. Usually is less then 25mg. As far as how long it takes to kick in, it took for me almost a week before the pain was taken care. You have to keep in mind that there is an accumulated inflammation that prednisone needs to "clean up" before the pain is gone. It all depends how long you have had the issue before it was diagnosed - weeks or perhaps months?

Just in case, if it does NOT go away in one week, then you should consider that something else might be causing the symptoms.

[Macadoo]

The pain did decrease a bit in the first 24 hours...hoping to see more decrease over the next 24.

[PMR2011 in reply to Macadoo]

Do realize once the pain is gone the disease is still active so need to pace your activities. It’s very tempting to be “business as usual” with your activity when you need to scale back then reintroduce slowly as you build tolerance.

[Macadoo in reply to PMR2011]

Good advice...thank you!