Re: Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR)

[Guest guest]

,

You bring up a good point. The same person can have different diseases

simultaneously, such as the flu and a cold. Often a first disease can lead

to a second disease as the body is weakened. If RA and PMR are combined,

the symptoms can get very confusing to a rheumatologist, as no treatment

seems to work.

Our wishes for continuing recovery are with your wife.

Sincerely, Harald

At 05:36 PM 12/3/2005 -0500, you wrote:

>My wife had Polymayalgia Rheumatica starting January 2003. Her

>rheumatologist put her on prednisone (10 mg) which cured her over a

>6-months period. The bad part is after another 3 months she developed

>Rheumatoid Arthritis which she is treating with Minocin. I get the

>impression the two diseases are related and one can lead to the other. For

>this reason, I would start Minocin at the first indication of RA.

>

>By the way, my wife is just getting the RA under control, meaning the

>spread has stopped, swelling and pain reduced etc. We hope to be back to

>'normal' soon.

>

>Good luck,

>

> and nne

>

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[Guest guest]

Hi Harald

We have patients that can present with what we call, a polymyalgic

onset of rheumatoid. That is, they appear to be PMR, but evolve into

RA with time.

There is also no reason why a patient with RA can't also develop PRM

as well.

Prednisone works for both, so is not really a good differentiation.

PMR causes transient synovitis in wrists and hands, but I've not read

anywhere that it can cause joint damage.

Sometimes, it is just too hard to tell which condition the patient

has. So, usually they end up on prednisone and a dmard.

There have been epidemiological studies done in Sweden ( or was it

Finland ) that showed that temporal arteritis was linked to epidemics

of Mycoplasma infections.

On 12/4/05, Harald Weiss, Technical Marketing Group <hweiss@...>

wrote:

>

>

> Dear Group,

>

> One December 1, after six years and three rheumatologists, I have

finally

> been officially diagnosed as having polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR).

That is a

> disease which mimics many of the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis

(RA) and

> fibromyalgia, with bilateral joint and muscle pain. There is no

specific

> test for it. Blood tests are seronegative, with no RA factor.

--

Dr Graham Chiu

http://www.compkarori.com/emr/

Synapse-EMR - free electronic medical records

[Guest guest]

Wow!! Is it not strange that my mom got temporal arteritis first, a year

later I developed RA, and now my daughter has RA. I never connected temporal

arteritis with mycoplasma infection.......something to think about!! Mom

was never on Minocin, but both myself and my daughter have done well on it.

Martha