first post here. Starting getting serious muscle and joint pain last February. After many blood tests, x-rays, CAT scan, visits with doctors and numerous specialists there is no conclusion. The Rheumatologist said if he had to guess he thought I had PMR, but he had never had a patient who got better on their own. After lots of stretching, exercise, swimming and using a hot tub 90% of my symptoms are gone. So I'm a little confused as to what has been going on. People always say "go see your doctor and get tested". But that clearly wasn't productive. Anything else I can try? Hopefully symptoms don't come back as at their height even sitting down and getting up was difficult. Thank you.
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mgarvie
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It sounds like PMR. However just because your rheumatologist has never had a patient who recovered on their own doesn't mean this isn't possible. We think PMR, which is a collection of symptoms with no known cause, not a defined disease, is triggered by many possible things, and can also follow a different course from patient to patient. Perhaps your particular episode was triggered by something like a virus, or a certain level of stress, or ?, and over time, along with the relaxing things you did, the body stopped turning on itself, as it does in autoimmune illness, and you are recovering. Please let us know how things work out for you as time goes by.
Thank you. Significant recent stressors before the episodes started are: a serious car accident; a bad flu; and swimming frequently in zero degree river water after breaking the ice!
Ah, well there you go then. I'm not sure about swimming in icy water, some people say that's good for inflammation 😨 , but either of the others could have triggered PMR symptoms.
At it's worst CRP was 14.1 mg/L, R factor 14 IU/mL, Nuclear Antibody positive, Nuclear Antibody Titre high (1.8), TSH 4.32 mIU/L, Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR) 79 ml/min/1.73 m2. Things have settled down to normal now. Sorry, but I don't know much about these tests.
There are several diseases/disorders that mimic one another. I requested tests to rule out differential diagnoses...you should ask your doctor to do that.
I kept going for 5 years with early visits to the gym, an aquafit class enabled me to manage Pilates or yoga and after that I could move even without pred. Many of the symptoms were gone although I never had a full day free from pain and as time went on it got steadily worse. For the first year I was probably 90% pain free after exercise, just the exercise was far harder than it should have been but I thought I was just aging and getting unfit. Then it arrived properly.
When you say "they are gone" do you mean on a daily basis or altogether? Are you stiff again each morning? PMR will burn out and go into remission on its own - the rheumies describe it as self-limiting so that means it can do so on its own. After all, pred doesn't TREAT it, it is a management approach to control the effects of the inflammation.
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