Talk:Polymyalgia rheumatica

Personal Experience
This appears to be a fairly difficult disease to diagnose. (I have no personal knowledge of giant cell arteritis.) I went through 6 doctors before finding an MD from Saigon at my local VA clinic who sussed out the illness--based, I think, primarily, on an extremely heightened sed rate--and perhaps on my carriage; I presented like a very, very old man.

The disease is much more horrid than is described here; it seems to grow progressively more debilitating as it goes untreated. It had, in my case, a bi-lateral symmetry in all the muscles from hips to shoulder blades and the increasing pain caused extreme depression. The pain is very mobile; it appears randomly and there are even some days when it remits enough to permit thoughts of walking about.

In its strongest (most painful) occurrences it makes it impossible to turn over in bed.

It was once considered a form of hypochondria.

Prednisone really works quickly--I started with an initial dose of 60mg/night. (I woke up the first morning feeling born again in a physical sense. OTOH, my mind was at best cranky and I seemed to have lost all rationality regarding eating. I gained forty pounds in about six weeks. After I managed to cut my dosage I lost that weight.)

I was, as I mentioned, seeing medical care through the Veterans (sic) Administration, and, while it is in many ways a good model for the single payer health care system any sane industrial economy ought to have, it is often slow in its communications between offices. Therefore, not seeing a physician for a few months, but in concert with my primary care provider, I took it upon myself to lower my dosage of the Prednisone and managed to get down to 2.5mg with a good deal of pain. When I tried to stop completely the PMR returned completely.

When I saw my rheumatism doctor she settled upon 5 mg of Prednisone and a liberal dose of opiates when the pain became uncomfortable. Having been through something that in my mind equaled the Tortures of the Inquisition I have not needed to use those medications but sparingly.

This is a rare enough disease that you may need to direct your health care provider toward the literature.

AFAIK, the disease will disappear if the symptoms are controlled for 18 months or more.

john fisher 

Lancet
- review. JFW | T@lk  13:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/169/20/1839 - systematic review of treatments. JFW | T@lk  22:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Polymyalgia rheumatica http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60680-1, The Lancet, Volume 381, Issue 9860, 5–11 January 2013, Page 28 --Nbauman (talk) 12:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Clinical Review: Polymyalgia rheumatica BMJ, December 3, 2013 --Nbauman (talk) 17:41, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Cause of muscle pain
'Causes' mentions joints being attacked but doesn't seem to explain why there is muscle pain. Are nerves or muscles also attacked ? Rod57 (talk) 21:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

"Infectious disease may be a contributing factor. This would be expected with sudden onset of symptoms, for example." So far as I can tell this is pure speculation, there is no citation for this.

"In addition, new cases often appear in cycles in the general population, implying a viral connection." No Citation.

"Studies are inconclusive, but several somewhat common viruses were identified as possible triggers for PMR.[11]" The linked citation does not make any mention of such studies.

"The viruses thought to be involved include the adenovirus, which causes respiratory infections; the human parvovirus B19, an infection that affects children; and the human parainfluenza virus.[12] " The citation links to an "Internet Archive" page, not the current "Causes" page for the Mayo Clinic. I suspect this is a disproved hypothesis. Most current articles say there is no identified virus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.99.95.228 (talk) 08:47, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Greek
Polymyalgia means 'pain in many muscles' Polymyalgia rheumatica means more than that —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.15.175.85 (talk) 20:29, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

This was a very good point. I have amended the article accordingly, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:21, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

[...] followed by the word rheumatica [...] in no way explains the word rheumatica. Both words need to be explained.--Tallard (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Ratio of men to women with this problem
The article says that women are twice as likely to have polymyalgia rheumatica than men. However, this website:

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Polymyalgia-Rheumatica.htm

says that women are three times more likely to have the condition than men. Does any one know which is the correct ratio? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, that website has a high Google search. I do not know whether it means it is accurate though! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Related to arthritis
This is related to arthritis, so why has arthritis not got a single mention in this article? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

This website:

http://blogs.rediff.com/dharsnigdha/

goes as far as to define polymyalgia rheumatica as a form of arthritis, affecting people over 50. One can see it is a blog though and I do not how accurate it is! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:33, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

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Needs update
This article could use an update and ref scrubdown. Consider drawing from recent reviews: LeadSongDog come howl!  18:22, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Error in text
I don’t know how to address this, but the following is exactly backwards as defining the ESR—a larger value means the cells settle faster (at least that’s what the ESR article says): One blood test usually performed is the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) which measures how fast the patient's red blood cells settle in a test tube. The slower the red blood cells settle, the higher the ESR value (measured in mm/hour), which means inflammation is present. 2603:3016:101:BA00:5050:96E1:8FD1:EB8C (talk) 23:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well spotted. Will correct.Jrfw51 (talk) 19:33, 22 November 2023 (UTC)