My doctor was concerned about elevated CPR, wanted to know what my pred dose was. Suggested I go to 2 from 1 mg. Agreed that osteoarthritis can cause elevated CPR. Sigh. I kind of feel I've fallen out of the frying pan of PMR into the fire of OA. Because of covid we made no plans for ongoing tests.
And, being the klutz that I am, I decided yesterday to add to my overall misery by jamming my thumb in a door - is this why the side of a door frame is called a "jamb" 😆 Needless to say, ice has become my new best friend!
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HeronNS
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I'd have thought a couple of x-rays might be called for rather than a stab in the dark.
I nearly did my index finger in the press bar of the fire door from the garage a few days ago - I was half way through at the time carrying a shopping bag. But I managed to escape - and no bruise which frankly I find amazing. Hope you don't need the ice for too long
Already have OA confirmed by x-ray. In fact knees done just a couple of months ago when I fell on one of them. The "slight" OA of 2014 is now "severe". Ironically, it's not the knee I fell on, but the other which is really bad, I think from overuse when the other out of commission. I think CRP here is considered okay if 10 or below, so either way 30 doesn't look good to me. It may be the highest it's ever been. On the plus side all my other tests were good. And I have had chicken pox - asymptomatically at some point in my life, so now I know.
Hmmm. We shall see. We have an in-person appointment in mid october for flu shots so I'll make a list of things to ask her while we are getting them. Already have request for another DXA scan on my mental list as it's been four years since my second one.
She suggested Voltaren when I complained (phone visit) a couple of months ago. But after I read the package insert I decided diclofenac was not for me and gave the tubes to my marathon-running son! I've been icing my bad knee. Nsaids interfere with cartilage regeneration (as, I recently read, does pred, who knew?) so I only use aspirin when I need it for headache. She did ask if Tylenol helps but I find acetaminophen relatively useless. Was a bit disturbed to hear her say I could take as much Tylenol as I wanted without any concerns but kept my mouth shut.
It’s just a vicious circle, one thing makes another thing worse.
I find heat better with my OA - what about a rub on rather than a tablet?
They gave me Meloxicam for my knees after the Chemo did a number on them.
Tylenol is what we call Paracetamol but have you tried it with some Codeine just to take off the edge? I know you don’t like too many tablets but it’s awful to be in pain.
Voltaren is a rub on. I used it once had some bleeding right away. That was from an old tube hubby has, so there was no package insert to read so I didn't know.
Of what med? I usually find heat helps OA aches and pains. This particular issue, the swollen knee, is doing better with ice. I also have to try to keep my leg elevated above my heart all night and a couple of times during the day. We even had to get the knee brace and crutches out of the storage locker for a couple of days, but now I don't even need my walking poles to hobble around the unit, although I take them with me when I'm outside so am making progress.
This knee started to hurt during the lockdown when I was racing to catch a walk signal before the red hand came up. I cannot even imagine racing for anything now! About a month after that I called my physiotherapist for a virtual visit and she gave me a couple of exercises. I did them a couple of times, they felt good and I knew they would help, then, 24 hours after our virtual visit I fell on my "good" knee (of the leg which was boken six years ago) which meant I then had to overuse my already painful other knee for weeks. I'm sure all that time I was doing more damage to the soft tissue. You know, even at the end of my NINE hours in the emergency department at the hospital (five hours before I even saw a doctor) I had to HOP out of the hospital to get collected because they didn't have a wheelchair which would support my injured leg. They expected me to hold it up, with the additional weight of a temporary plaster splint 😨 I had to get out of the wheelchair and use it for support while I hopped quite a long way to where I would meet my husband. So that alone, not to mention the following couple of weeks while I really had to coddle the other knee, would have been enough to cause a problem. And it just kept getting worse, probably because I never realized I needed to REST not keep on using the poor limb. I can be extraordinarily thick sometimes.
Sorry, this got long. I guess I needed to tell someone. Thank you for listening! 👂
~HeronNS - really sorry to read of your present predicament - recall I started my PMR journey about same time as you.
I'm not far behind you with troublesome knees and have had several attempts to slow taper only to have one knee blow up so not sure where PMR is/overlaps now with OA.
Thinking of you and sending every good wishes imaginable your way~
Thank you for kind words. Hope you are also feeling better soon. I guess it is what it is.... A little hard coming to terms with it, that's all. And the lifestyle changes wrought by the pandemic haven't helped one iota!
~Indeed HeronNS this world has dramatically changed hopefully for the better.........
Presently well, working with my physio + daily exercises at home to keep strength in leg muscles/ligaments/tendons.
Found a new secret which might sound strange & way off topic - my lemon tree abundant this season so use peel/white pith) in my food at breakfast/dinner. Excellent source of amazing goodness for our bodies - not to mention the juice of course.
I have polyarthritis and am in pain nearly all the time (more in the night than in the day). I take Cocodamol and it REALLY helps - 2 or 3 in the night but I can keep it down to 1 or 2 during the day. No side effects except perhaps constipation (sometimes)!
I found Voltaren no help at all, but I find heat - rather than ice - much more effective.
I usually have found warmth much better. This is why I referred to ice as my "new" best friend! There is a lot of inflammation and swelling, sometimes the knee has been quite warm to the touch, ice has helped, much to my surprise because it never used to. Once I'm back to my old self, or as close to as likely, I'm sure heat will be the dish of the day again.
I assume cocodamol is codeine? I have a bottle of acetaminophen with codeine which I take in addition to aspirin if I have a particularly bad headache. The bottle lasts for a couple of years as I use it sparingly. I've found lately that when I take this med I have an unpleasant spaced out feeling, which I assume is the codeine. This is with only one tablet. But it does save at least one dose of the aspirin I would otherwise need which helps my stomach.
That is actually what I use although it worked better when it was mixed with aspirin not acetaminophen. No brand name, held behind counter and these days they take your name and number and all because of the codeine content.
There's been so much trouble with the big opioids that the rest of us are caught up in the net. At least I can still get it without going cap in hand and wasting a doctor's time to get a prescription.
Cocodamol is a combination of 500mgm (= 1 tablet) of paracetamol and codeine. In uk it’s usually 8/500 which you can buy in the pharmacy, then 15/500 and 30/500. If you’re spaced out yours may be the higher amount of codeine. The 30/500 certainly makes me float, so I avoid it. Prefer a couple of gin & tonics!
No it's 8/300. I always have it either with a 500 capsule of tylenol or some aspirin. Anything stronger I would definitely not get without prescription.
Have just looked up polyarthritis. It says it's treated, among other things (like codeine), with corticosteroids or hydroxychloroquine. Sounds like another confusing disease with a number of possible causes.
Gosh, sorry to hear of your current dilemma Heron. Are you sure the raised CRP isn't PMR firing up again? A CRP reading of over 10 is definitely signs of a flare for me, 30 would be an absolute. Then again you didn't mention any "typical" PMR symptoms.
I have mild osteoarthritis in my knees, shoulders, and thumbs. My back is a mess with it. No doubt prednisone is hiding some of the pain. However, I take 2 time release Tylenol Muscle and Joint/or Arthritic (they're the same in content) before bed every night, which helps with the morning pain and stiffness caused by being in bed and not moving. I'm mostly ok during the day as long as I keep moving every so often. I've been doing exercises to strengthen my back muscles for some time now and having a lot less flare ups of back pain. When I do I hit it with ice and a couple of hits of high dose Ibuprofen and ice...and get back to the exercises that I may have avoided for a few days.
There is a definite sign of PMR starting up with me which I now recogise quite readily, and have from time to time responded to with an additional mg if needed. I just wanted to find out if the CRP spike could be related to OA as we are so often told this is NOT inflammatory. Well it is inflammatory at times. And the OA was present long before PMR - I was diagnosed at age 40, but I think I already had it in my feet and neck before that, so it's not surprising really that I would be feeling it especially badly after the years of pred damping down all inflammation while I kept on aging, more rapidly than I would have without PMR/pred.... It's disappointing that PMR which can be controlled with pred has now been taken over by OA which doesn't really have a safe longterm effective treatment.
Thank you. But I am coming to realize that life was never meant to be fair, or unfair. It simply is. Something to experience.
I had a thought today. What if our lives really are like those of a moth or butterfly? We spend most of our lives chomping away on the leaves and getting big. Then we have to metamorphose. Who knows what those sensations are like for the insect? But maybe we in our fearsome and uncomfortable changes are also metamrphosing. And then we become winged creatures who dance for a moment in the sun, dazzled by the light, what we strove towards all our life. Then it's over....
Sorry to hear of your pain... your comment on the moths made me want to recommend “when the heart waits” sue monk kidd. She uses these comparisons throughout this amazing book... it has helped me embrace waiting.
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Inflammation and depression; Near normal blood results for CPR, with ESR stubborn at 43 and blood sugar at 43
Visit to Rheumatologist 30/12
Do adrenals starting up equate to a small rise in ESR and CPR?
Tapering from 30 mg Pred?
CRP 30
