saw a consultant Friday re lower back issues. Being sent for MRI. Consultant said ‘you have no need to see me yet, you have no hip problems’. He then said I think you may have PMR returning so referring to Rheumatologist.
That will take months. While I suffer with pains in my back, buttocks, legs, unable to lift legs or go up stairs. Don’t expect GP just to try a short dose of Pred just in case. Plucking up courage to ask for GP appointment. 😊
Tell the GP VERY clearly what the consultant said and say you would like a short trial of pred to see if that makes life bearable again. If it is caught quickly now, you won't need a high dose, it will probably be well under 5mg, Leave it and you will end up back at the beginning which would be daft.
Yes that’s what I thought. But the GPs are so dead set on getting off Pred they don’t know what the pain is like and think I am just wanting to dtay on Pred. Wait hung for the Rheumatologist could take months.
Beats me why they think we WANT to be on pred except to relieve the pain!!! Especially to go back on pred.
It is strange. Especially when you hear about GPs overprescribing in other areas, e.g. antibiotics, anti-depressants. I presume they worry that although prescribing pred gets you off their books in the short term, there may be longer term issues from side effects? Which will bring you back to them?
Personally, I think the side effects issue is overegged. What does get me is their willingness to offer pregabalin and gabapentin which don't work for PMR and have quite a street value ... No-one is going to offer me money for my pred tablets!!!
Oh drat -could have made a fortune early days … 🤣😂
That’s what I thought with my stash 😂🤣😂🤣😂
Stand your ground with the GP. The rheumatologist says you may have PMR coming back so all the GP has to do is give you steroids for a week or so as a test so it can be thrown out as a diagnosis if they do not work. It is not too much to ask for the GP to do this rather than just leaving you in pain.
It’s all finance to them. I would be put in with someone I have seen or get a phone call from someone who doesn’t know I am deaf. Not on my records although I have told them every time I go. Remembering they are gods 😊
Repetition every time you see a different medic is soul destroying more especially when you are deaf and they havent even read your notes if it was actually on there.
My notes have a lot of errors in them I notice. As my surgery seem to have about five computer systems they access and I am probably on all of them with different data, I have decided to just leave it. I am horrified by the errors that are made. I am supposed to be taking tablets I have never heard of. I am on no long term medication, what about steroids? Don’t they count? My parents did not die of sudden cardiac death. My mother dying within a day of a heart attack does not count, I suppose? Although it was not the heart attack that killed her but the NHS giving her the wrong amount of medication without checking. It was a Sunday and their was only a very junior doctor there.
Same, my records dug up ancient RX and says I'm currently on about 20 meds I have never taken. Tamiflu? I'm tempted to make every single office correct all the blatant errors.
I am not sure they can delete errors as such they have to make another comment saying it is wrong. Also as there seem to be a myriad of different systems that do not talk to each other one wonders whether life may be too short to embark on such an exercise!!
I am sure they can have them removed by the IT department. We could at Social Care 😊
It is not an IT problem, it is a security thing I assume. They don’t want people updating info already there or deleting it.
My daughter had another girls ailments on her medical records. The other girl was 10 years older. We only found out because we had to have her notes for legal reasons 😂
Come on, you can do this. As PMR says tell your GP firmly exactly what the Consultant said. Consultants trump GP's and he/she should understand that. Following a great deal of trouble with my GP I have changed my attitude. I am polite, firm and will not accept NO for an answer. It is working. Good Luck!!
Try telling the GP how it will benefit him if he gives you a short course of pred. If it works you wont have to bother him and take any more time up that others may need. If it doesn't least you've ruled out one thing it isn't. If you can word it so he thinks its his idea too. We have to self manage these days as there is no time to talk so we go fore armed with information and possibble diagnosis then they think we are telling them their job they spent years studying for. Its difficult especially when you are ill frustrated and feel like your not important or don't matter.a
Makes you wonder if they have chosen the right career. Today they are talking about the number of suicides. Could some of that be because no one listens or sees that patients are begging for help
Most of them chose it as a career in a very different time. All HCP jobs - careers - have changed unbelievably since 2010. Before then you could still anticipate career development, learning new skills and progressing, Now you leave uni - ALL HCP posts require a degree - with a mountain of debt and still have to learn on the job. For medics, they are told where they will work and they will move every 6 months with no choice. This means marriage and having a home is next to impossible - but the hours they work don't make it much pleasure for the partner anyway. There really isn't a lot of joy in their life taking all that into consideration.
It's pretty sad when we have to beg to see our medical "caregivers" and then to be overcome with trepidation at the thought of having to cajole them into seeing these diseases as they actually are. Same here in Nova Scotia. We are our best and often only advocates.
PMR without Pred
Pred Free for 3 weeks
Flare after zero pred for 6 months?
Split dose tapering below 6 mg pred
2 weeks on pred before biopsy
