Does stimulation of the vagus nerve alleviate PMR

[Trehunsey]

Recently diagnosed PMR and am wondering if anyone with more experience has found an advantage from stimulating the parasympathetic state with massage or electrical stimulation

[SnazzyD]

Hello and welcome. Do you mean as direct pain relief or anti inflammatory or as a way of stopping the autoimmune activity that causes the inflammation that causes the pain? Can’t say I’ve ever seen any mention of it here but you never know, someone might pipe up!

[Trehunsey in reply to SnazzyD]

My use of prednisolone has removed the inflammation and pain and I am reducing the dose as quickly as possible. If pain returns at lower doses the assistance of stimulating the parasympathetic state might help. Others might have found this to be the case. Thanks for your reply.

[SnazzyD in reply to Trehunsey]

Pred only controls inflammation and pain if the dose of Pred is high enough. As soon as you dip below what you need it will all come back and you’ll be back to square one. Unfortunately, Pred isn’t the cure and is just a safety net until your autoimmune activity subsides over a few years. The idea of reducing is to find the lowest dose that will combat your inflammation level. If you reduce too quickly you may over shoot and end up having to go back up again and over time you end up receiving more Pred in your system than you would have if you reduce slowly. Sometimes it takes a week or two for the inflammation to build up again to cause pain. Meanwhile you could have dropped by a few mg in that time and if the pain comes back you won’t know when you were too low.

[yogabonnie]

the prednisone is doing the trick.. but if you can through diet.. lo carb which is said to be anti-inflammatory or whatever else... for me hoping ice baths lower inflammation... and massage naturally, it cannot hurt and who knows may make tapering prednisone easier. I also think I am in a pattern of fear when I lower.. and don't know if it is from lowering the prednisone or a flare that is causing pain. I think I expect it to happen and then it does..might factor in. As you can see.. I dont know anything!!!

[SnazzyD in reply to yogabonnie]

Yes, it’s finding what works for one’s general healing and mental wellbeing, which likely helps calm the body down.