Hello All.Does anyone have experience of crepitus (crunching) in the neck and shoulder blades?
Apart from fatigue, this is my main symptom of pmr at the moment, at the point where I have tapered to 7 mg of pred daily.
But maybe it is nothing to do with pmr, just an added condition?
Thanks
I get this in my neck. I tend to put it down to cervical Spondylosis, diagnosed by X Ray but it has been worse in recent months - strange beds, travelling perhaps?
Thanks for this, SJ.
It could be cervical spondylosis. I have poor posture and have a desk job, plus it does respond to ibuprofen (which I try to really limit).
I think I'll wait until I've tapered off pred fully (hopefully within the next year) then ask for an x-ray.
I’ve had it on and off for years if I am chronically tense or have been in a bad posture a lot.
Do you have any pain or swelling with it or do you just crunch? I have had it in my neck for years and people look up when it happens, as it is quite loud, and then they laugh! I have no pain so I just ignore it.
Hi P.
It's not exactly painful, more a constant mild ache which feels like it needs a massage.
It's nothing like the disabling effect of PMR, though. I could barely walk before I started on pred.
I have a rather nice extra loud click in my left ankle, which I produce from rotating it sometimes. People tend to look when that happens, as you experience. Totally not painful or achy, though.
Thanks for your replies. I will really try to improve my posture this year. Maybe I'll get one of those braces from Amazon.
Best wishes
I think I have always had slight pain from PMR in spite of the steroids. I remember at school we used to pull our fingers to make them click.
Oh early school days 🤭always told off by teacher as it made her feel sick 😇😁🤗🤗
We had a Maths teacher who used to say “Watch the board carefully and I will go through it”!
My neck cracks every time I move it. Not painful. Not PMR. Right shoulder “pops” some time. Not PMR.
Yes - I've had the pop in my right shoulder, too. Again, not painful. Glad it is not connected to the PMR. Thanks
I’ve had a problem with a crunching neck since around 1983. It started when I was on night shift.
I went to the osteopath and it Improved but never went. The osteopath said the only way to know what’s going on is to get it X-ray ed. I never have, so no diagnosis yet.
I move my neck to release it ( accompanied by the crunching) in a way that people think I’m saying hi. I put a hot pad on my neck sometimes which seems to improve it. Sometimes my tinnitus gets worse as my neck gets worse.
I’m intrigued you’ve got a name for your condition as I never have. I don’t tend to have pain unless it becomes extreme, like if I lay badly or look at my computer screen at an angle for a long period.
I can have accompanied tingling in my hands and legs If I sit badly for an extended time. I don’t think, apart from correct exercise and the hot pad anything seems to help.
I find that to be part of aging and/or stress. I’m a yoga therapist and many of my clients experience it.
I ‘crack’ all over, but mainly due to hypermobility! My jaw is liable to dislocate, not much fun in the dentists chair! I had 4 car crashes (none my fault) but each time a neck & shoulders injury. Dentist said she’d never heard a jaw make such a loud noise! My ankle & knee subluxated (partial dislocation) when I fell out of bed two nights ago, & the noise has risen quite a few decibels!
Oh no! Hope things are improving.
I had a rear-end shunt (requiring physio to my shoulders) at about 30mph when I was stationary at traffic lights about 9 years ago, so maybe this set it up.
It’s possible. My first & worst rear end shunt…I was stationary in a queue, with hand brake on. Car behind me wasn’t watching, panicked when saw queue…hit accelerator pedal instead of brake. I was driving a brand new company car…& it broke the main frame of the car in two.
When I move my neck or shoulders everything cracks. I liken it to sounding like a military band😂 Mine is due to osteoarthritis in neck and acromium clavicular joints though. Used to hurt but nowadays doesn't hurt just noisy!
I have lots of crunching CaraDee, neck, shoulder, wrist, ankle. It started a few months ago whilst I was trying to drop down to 4mg. Rheumy says that it's known that crunchy joints can be a 'thing' for long term Pred users. They don't really know why, but he did mention collagen. However he said he didn't think it applied to me as I hadn't been on high enough doses for long enough. I've had an MRI of cervical spine recently, which showed a wear and tear problem, narrowing of the space between a couple of vertebrae, and he said that the shoulder crunching was a tendon. No answer on the other areas of crunching, so I'm no further forward really as to why it all started at once. It's definitely not getting better though! I've just started taking a Glucosamine/MSM/Chondroitin/Collagen tablet. Thought I'd give it 2 or 3 months to see if they help.
Fyi. In our native state, prior to gravity and aging, our synovial joint surfaces are more "slippery" that 2 ice cubes sliding past each other! Amazing and phenomenal. Generally speaking the non - painful sounds ( sandy grinding, crunching, poping, cracking ) and other vibrations associated with joint motion are typically an expression of less than slick natural pristine state. Poping,cracking that occur then take a bit of time to " re-set", tend to be postulated as an expression of cavitation.
Tendon "snapping" over their neighbors or joint clunking are 2 other voices in the chorus of mechanical sounds common to us humans.
Protect your joints, and minimizing abnormal loads across them is the "big picture"... Pain= Bad
Pursue your health, know and understand your body.... sincerely jls
Thanks for this. I've started asking younger/stronger people at work to move heavy things for me now, rather than struggling on.
The body truly is an amazing thing!
Yes. Neck problems since childhood. Not sure when crunchy neck started but had it long before PMR. In fact this post caught my eye because I'm in the process of determining whether my hand tremor, and a couple of other symptoms, are related to the osteoarthritis in my cervical spine continuing to worsen.
So if you have a crunchy neck, see about having a physiotherapist prescribe some exercises to keep the muscles in the area strong; helps to support affected vertebrae. I think I'd have been in a neck brace years ago without my physio.
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