Hi. I was tapering and down to 5 mg of prednisone. After a busy and stressful weekend, where I didn’t take my Pred until 10am, instead of my usual 7am, I have developed a very painful muscle around my knee, which continues up my inner thigh and front. It is the only pain I have, nothing in other knee or anywhere else. I have upped my dosage to 10mg and after 2 days it’s still sore. Is it a flare as it is only on one side? Should I take a stronger dosage of Pred?
Thanks in advance.
Sue.
I think that sounds more like an injury of some sort - flares don't often affect one location like that, Possibly a strained adductor muscle? Due to the busy weekend rather than the late dose of pred...
Thank you for prompt reply. I don’t think I did anything to cause an injury. I have a knee replacement, but it is not sore at all. It’s strange, but I do think it’s to do with the polymyalgia.
What did you do? Even a bit of extra but ordinary stuff can tweak things I found. Lots of sitting that might have upset your back and tweaked a nerve? Getting up and down? All that sort of stuff.
I agree with all said here. Doesn’t sound like a flare. The wonderful people here made me realize that every time something bothers you, don’t be so quick to assume a flare. I’ve learned to relax and try a pain killer if new pain doesn’t clear up in a few days. Most times it’s something ive done.
Unfortunately pred can weaken muscles, etc., so you may have done something quite ordinary and not realized you'd stressed some body part enough to cause pain until later. Sad but true. Treat it like a minor injury and hopefully you'll see improvement soon.
Thanks for all the replies. I did wonder that taking the Pred 4 hours after my normal time had caused the inflammation to build up and the 5mg of Pred did not hit the usual mark. I will take it easy and hope that with that, and, taking the higher dose of Pred, will work to settle down the pain.
I can support everything the others have said, I was getting right hip pain when tapering, I assumed a flare so increased Pred slightly, with no benefit. Subsequently my X-ray showed osteoarthritis. It does respond to painkillers, which confirmed not pmr.
I had similar situation after getting down from 20mg to 1mg. Severe pain around one knee which meant I could hardly straighten to get out of bed. X ray showed nothing. One Dr suggested I need to go swimming and cycling.. told him I would if I could!! Another Dr suggested steroid injection and rheumy said up dose to 10mg. I followed the rheumy and problem solved. Now back down to 3.5mg.
I am on 10mg. I have been laying lino - slowly, slowly, bit at a time. But I have found that my knees have started to hurt. I believe it's the floor exercise not PMR.
As for fatigue - it's awful - without any exercise.
I had a stumble a couple of months ago and pulled tendon in left quad. I think, because our muscles are weakened , things like this tend to happen. Pain was not a flare. When I have a pain, e.g.in my back or hip or even leg when walking , I first try some Tylenol. If this relieves some of the pain, I know it has nothing to do with PMR.
Like PMRpro says it dose sound like an injury if you have a flair and I hope you don’t in my experience it’s totally disabling, at the times I have had them preds and antihistamines have done the trick best wishes stay safe
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