Pain in my knees after walking

[Bobbury]

Since July 23 I've been reducing pred from 15mg to 11.5mg.

I walk the dog every day for between 15 - 30 minutes. I excercise most days for aprox 15 mins.

I have developed a problem whereby when I set of for a walk I'm quite fine, sometimes I have to push myself to get the legs working but on the whole nothing too bad.

However on returning from my walk may be 10 minutes later I have very painful knees. The pain is at the back of the knee. I usually take paracetamol which usually takes the pain away. Having read the response to Magsig problem, I'm wondering whether my pred dose is too low. Last year I had keyhole surgery on my left knee which after sometime returned to normal and walking was a joy!

The doctors always make me feel guilty of taking high doses of pred and there is this push from the doctor to a lower dose quite quickly which I refused to do until i'm happy with the way my body is responding. I've been on pred now for over 10 years and I've tried every method of tappering. I would say though at 15 mg I was quite happy and had no issues and life was comfortable. Now it's just difficult and energy sucking! Would appreciate any suggestions/comments

Thanks

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

If paracetamol helps then doubtful it’s PMR- that usually does zilch.

As an experiment why not try a topical gel on back of knee before you walk the dog or even paracetamol before the event rather than after - and see if that makes any difference… prevention being better than cure 😊

Every pain is not always PMR.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

Think I would ask for x-rays to rule out osteoarthritis issues. And in line with DL's suggestion it MIGHT be worth trying Flexiseq (WD40 for human joints).

The other common causes of back of the knee pain is posterior cruciate ligament trouble or Baker's cysts, But I think it would be strange of those were the same in both knees.

[Bobbury in reply to PMRpro]

Thanks PMR pro, I give it a try