Prednisone reduction

[Seal49]

Saw my Rheumatologist today and he keeps insisting that what I have sounds like RA with maybe some PMR. He asked if I had any pain at all and I told him some in my thighs and cramps in my one hand sometimes. He wants me to start on SSZ and start reducing from 30 mg by 2.5 every 2 weeks. Wants me completely of prednisone as soon as possible and the SSZ will help to do this. Wants me to start the SSZ at 500 mg a day and get up to 1500 a day Insists that this is alot safer than staying on prednisone. Not sure what to do

[123-go]

In my opinion it is not good practice to treat you on the basis of, “it sounds like”. I would ask for tests to confirm. See this:

healthline.com/health/rheum....

[PMRpro Ambassador]

If there is PMR in the mix, the sulphasalazine won't make any difference to the PMR symptoms so it is unlikely it will get you off pred any faster. I had a rheumy who decided what I had wasn't PMR but an inflammatory arthritis and he wanted to put me on SSZ. Luckily for me I was about to move here to Italy and SSZ must be supervised by a specialist so it was postponed, Here there has never been any question about PMR - and my rheumy is a world name in the field, I am on Actemra now and it works well which adds to the evidence it is PMR.

I would want to see the evidence he has that makes him think it is an inflammatory arthritis. How did you respond to pred at the start? Do you have specifically joint pain? What were your symptoms?

By the way - it would be helpful if you deleted the other post as it is pretty meaningless on its own and add the info to your original here.

[piglette]

I am not being rude but does your rheumatologist know anything about treating PMR? If you do have PMR, SSZ is not the correct drug although it is sometimes used for RA. You are on quite a high dose for PMR, but as soon as you get any pain problems STOP reducing and tell your rheumatologist that you are in pain.