Swelling around collarbone

[Whitner]

So is swelling around the front of my collarbones from prednisone or PMR?

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Yes. Possibly. Seriously - it could be either!!! Usually pred though I suspect.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

I would say more likely from the Pred - it does have a tendency to redistribute the adipose tissue around the neck - as well as face!

But just keep your eye on it! Should reduce as Pred tapered.

[powerwalk]

Yes, i got that from Pred. Within a couple of weeks of starting it.

[Whitner]

Thanks very much ladies. I had a flare and am back at 15 mg so I guess that’s the culp

[Whitner]

The culprit. I’d heard if the hump on the back of the neck but not in the front 🥴

[Ciar]

I had a large swelling of the sternoclavicular joints (the 2 bony bumps at the center of the collarbones in front of the neck). My collar bones were extremely painful with PMR, those joints in particular. It was definitely in the bone and not soft tissue. They are still swollen, but not as much, 3 plus years later. I had many flares at the beginning of my treatment because doctors kept withdrawing prednisone, so they had a lot of opportunity to get inflamed. I researched PMR as a cause for this because the rheumatologist I was seeing kept saying It was not caused by my PMR. I read a medical paper where the authors were trying to differentiate PMR from late onset RA. The sternoclavicular joint was one of the places that lit up on PET scans in PMR patients. I can’t find the reference to that paper,but here’s a similar one.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/299...

[Whitner in reply to Ciar]

Thanks Ciar for the link. Interesting. My swelling seems more like soft tissue and is not tender to the touch.

[Living001]

Hi Whitner, I’ve now got the swelling around the collarbones, It makes my neck look quite thick. ive been on Pred since last August . Currently in 18mg a day. I also have the hump on the back of the neck .. But at least I can get up and walk everyday, and do life, grateful that the Pred is helping.

[Whitner in reply to Living001]

Oh me too!

[Scrappy62]

I’ve had that swelling as well, and because I have a thyroid goiter, I was concerned it might be related to that, so had an ultrasound, then a biopsy. Both the ultrasound and the biopsy were interpreted as it being an expansion of the thyroid, but benign. Now I’m seriously doubting that interpretation!