Full of questions

[Darcy2000]

The last few days I have been having a significant lot of pain in my knee and foot. I have PMR and GCA. This got me to thinking what the heck is going on inside my body with PMR. I have no issues with my knees re wear and tear and probably if you xrayed them they would look in pretty good shape for my age . That being said what is happening in that area and other parts of the body if there is no anatomical problem .Inflammation of course but how does POlymyalgia cause the pain and what is exactly being inflamed ...is it the joint or the surrounding structures and why is it random targeting a variety of different areas. Thanks this is what I do when I am lying in bed wide awake at night

[PMRpro Ambassador]

PMR inflammation is mainly in the soft tissue structures surrounding the joints (muscles, tendons, ligaments and their attachments to one another) and in the synovium, the joint lining. Where MPS (myofascial pain syndrome) is also involved, it is caused by the same cytokine (inflammatory substance), IL-6, located in the muscle fascia (the transparent skin surrounding muscles that you will know from joints of meat and poultry) and in areas of inflamed muscle fibres in the larger muscle groups and which can be felt as hard knots. In PMR the cytokine is systemic, in MPS it is more localised.

Therapeutic massage can release the cytokine from the so-called trigger points and then as it gets into the blood stream you may feel as if you have a PMR flare until it is excreted from the body - then you feel better, That doesn't happen with the systemic cytokine in PMR because it is topped up daily.

jrheum.org/content/jrheum/4...

spineuniverse.com/condition....