After being on Pred for 2 years for PMR I find my discomfort has suddenly moved from the back to the buttocks area. For the last week I've awoken to stiffness here and it lingers throughout the day. I recall my doctor saying 'Polymyalgia' means muscular pain that moves around. I have to wonder if this discomfort has taken up new residence here and if this is just a muscular thing only! Have any of you had a similar experience?
Pain in my buttocks was one of my first signs. I attributed it first to my cycling. I thought I sprained my piroformis muscle. Two years went by before I realized it was something else. My pain was concentrated in my buttocks, hips, knees and back. I also had it in my hands. I couldn't get off the couch or out of my car for months without pain. I've scaled down to 5 mg Pred as I mentioned before but just this morning had a bout of pain in my buttocks.
If I think back to almost 10 yrs ago, I remember having shoulder pain where I couldn't raise my arms above my head. I just thought it was my typical neck arthritis I've had for years. Bet not!
Hello Leonard, I am one of the lucky ones, never had pain in my lower back. I did have pain in my buttocks but since I've been on preds all my pain has gone. Have you recently reduced? I wonder if this pain might be the beginnings of a flare, or have you been doing a lot of work that entails using the muscles of your buttocks and now you are feeling the results of that? Regards, christina
I had terrible buttock and thigh pain before being diagnosed. I also felt I was sitting on pebbles, so much so I replaced the cushions on my three piece suite only to discover it was me not the cushions! On taking pred it went away but seems to have come back recently but not half so bad.
Hi Christina, I've been on 10 mg for a good month and don't think I've done anything excessive using muscles to do with the buttocks. I do know that any yard work even for 10 or 15 minutes can bring on stiffness in the back the next day. What puzzles me is why the discomfort here lingers after a week. I have had a few long days lately and been exhausted at bed time so maybe this is all part of my body saying 'slow down', something we hear repeatedly from others here. I'm going for a CRT tomorrow to see if this reading is up as that may be an indication the inflammatory process has been aggravated.
Hi Leonard,
Like Pam, this is the first place that tells me the PMR is acting up and I need to rest or stay at my current dose of pred for a couple of days.
Were you doing anything that may have caused it? I recently had to do a very fast dig out of a flip-flop at the beach. My Grandson's foot came out without it while playing in a deep sandy hole he had dug and we knew we had to retrieve it to save him My daughter and I spent about 1/2 hr digging like crazy to win over the water and continous flow of sand that came back into the hole. We were laughing so hard I'm surprised we won over mother nature but we did. Yeah!!
The next day I woke up with a sore butt??? Oh no, not now when I'm with the kids!!! Then my daughter started complaining about hers to and we had more laughs about what lousy shape we are in that 1/2 hr on our knees digging in the sand could do this to us.
This PMR really is a pain in the butt isn't it. Hope yours is better soon.
Hugs, Diana
Not being flip......I had pain in buttocks also...
I told my doctor that every day is trick or treat....I never know what's
going to hurt!
Most likely to be either due to myofascial pain syndrome affecting your lower back and causing referred pain into the buttocks and thighs or to piriformis syndrome. Both are often found alongside PMR and the symptoms are often confused for one another. My standard recommendation is to try Bowen therapy - and there are several people on this and other forums who have found it definitely does work!
"I do know that any yard work even for 10 or 15 minutes can bring on stiffness in the back the next day. What puzzles me is why the discomfort here lingers after a week" - because PMR causes your muscles to be intolerant of acute exercise. That means they don't tell you at the time that you are overdoing it so you go far too far and then they are unable to repair themselves as normal so the aftermath lasts longer than normal. Exercise causes miniscule tears in your muscles which then repair over the following hours - training is the repeating of this process over time so your muscles become stronger and more used to the process. In PMR they cannot do that as they would normally - the reason I emphasise over and over and over again that you MUST pace yourself, MUST know your limits and MUST stick to them. Allowing more time between exercising sessions (whether it is gardening or in the gym or a walk) for that recovery is also needed. Or you will suffer the consequences.
It isn't just a case of "I'll get this done today and then rest for a few days" - if you are not careful you can actually do so much damage that it causes a major PMR flare that can take weeks or even months to recover from. You can't stay in bed - you have to at least get up for the bathroom - and with damaged muscles you may undo the repair already done in the last few hours. It becomes a vicious circle: you damage the muscles but resting also weakens them, being in bed for a couple of days already results in loss of muscle mass and strength.
Not sure where the "moves around" bit comes from - polymyalgia means many muscles...