Welcome to our new members

[Fran_Benson]

Hello and welcome to all our new forum members - 231 new members in October!

We hope you've had a chance to look around and find answers to your questions. Here's a quick guide to get you up and running and a couple of key housekeeping rules to help you and the rest of the community.

1. Fill out your profile - let us know whether you have PMR or GCA (or both), how long you've been diagnosed, what gender you are, what country you're based in - these are the basics, do tell us any other relevant details. (And message to the longer standing members - if you haven't filled out your profile or it's out of date, please fill it in or update it now - thank you.) If you’re not sure what to put in your profile, please take a look at Mrs Nails’ healthunlocked.com/user/Mrs... and Dorset Lady’s healthunlocked.com/user/Dor...

2. Got a question? Before you post, check out the FAQs. You'll often find the question you want to ask has already been asked and there will be lots of replies to browse through. It's in the pinned post section or you can find it here healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

3. Remember that we are not doctors and that no advice you receive here should replace the advice given to you by your own clinician. If you are worried about your symptoms, do consult your doctor.

4. Read our guidelines so you know the rules. In short, show respect to your fellow members, no spamming (promoting products or services), if you post details of treatment etc please provide links to the research. If you are concerned about someone's post or reply, simply use the report function beneath the post. Here is a link to our guidelines in full: healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

5. Finally, this forum is one of the many services that we, PMRGCAuk, provide to support people with PMR and GCA. Please consider joining the charity to help support us or make a donation.

pmrgca.org.uk/how-to-help/b...

pmrgca.org.uk/how-to-help/d...

Thank you

The team at PMRGCAuk

[LBM1953]

Hi Fran. Just a matter of interest really. Has the number of new members increased significantly since Covid??

[Fran_Benson Partner in reply to LBM1953]

Hi LBM1953, yes we have seen more new members since Covid.

[Nextoneplease in reply to Fran_Benson]

I wonder whether this is because there have been more new diagnoses - or because more of us have turned to the internet and to forums like this for support?

[Fran_Benson Partner in reply to Nextoneplease]

Also it depends if you mean new members to the forum or new members to the charity? Typically we see around 200-250 new members to the forum each month and that has been steady at that number for a long time.

[Nextoneplease in reply to Fran_Benson]

Thanks Fran 😊 So if forum membership is holding steady, is it that more members are joining the charity?If so that could be a great thing for research, fund raising etc??

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to LBM1953]

Off the top of my head - IRO 5,000 new members since Christmas 2019. And I wouldn't be surprised if the number of posts since then wasn't IRO 15K. I used to keep an eye on both figures - it was scary!!!!

[LBM1953 in reply to PMRpro]

Do we know if these figures are greater than they were pre Covid?

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to LBM1953]

The figures at the top of the page are total members at a given time. At the Xmas it was about 10,000 members over all time since the forum was set up. Now it is just under 15,000 members. So the rate of joining HU has shot up for the last 2 years compared with the previous 6 or 7 years since PMRGCAuk's forum was started.

[Constance13 in reply to PMRpro]

Wow - you've got some work ahead of you.