I am a complete novice on this site and this is my first posting, but I was wondering if anyone else has experienced the pain I have been getting in one hip, which means that I can only walk slowly with the aid of a stick for very short distances. I am taking 20mg of prednisone a day which seems to be keeping the other joints in check but not this one. I'm wondering if the problem might have another cause but so far my doctor is a bit nonplussed and doesn't seem to know how to treat it.
Hello Hazel
Welcome to the forum! I am new also. As for the hips, omg yes they hurt with fibro, they get a little nutty sometimes, a quick xray would determine if something else is going on. My guess is the fibro .
Be well, blessings
Wanda
How old are you Hazel? It could be Osteoarthritis if the pain is only in one hip, PMR pain is usually (not always) bilateral. However, we are all different.
I have had this too...long story, aren't they all? Mine seems to be from the weak abdominals and glutes on that side due to the poly. That side of my lower abdomen actually sags, you can see it. It didn't used to before the onset of poly--I was pretty religious about keeping my abs tight. I've read that the type of hip pain that I have (sometimes extends down the outside of my thigh and into my knee) can be due to weakened muscles. Maybe micro tears. I have appt next week with physical therapist, will know more then.
Could you ask for a hip referral? One side doesn't sound like typical PMR and it sounds as though you don't think it is, either.
My one sided hip pain turned out to be a hip badly in need of replacing. It changed my life.
Thanks, I'll find out soon with my physical therapist who is a master of figuring things out. I already saw an orthopedic surgeon who said it was muscle collapse. Said to stop all exercise, do yoga instead, but even gentle yoga is too hard with the poly.
I'd love to know what your therapist reckons the cause to be. Gentle yoga doesn't work for me either, and I walked miles in New York when visiting my son. Muscle collapse wouldn't surprise me! Pred is good but doesn't solve everything, and like Hazel I can feel a slight ache in the leg and thigh areas. We could all do with a Miss Marple, although Eileen is pretty good!
We don't have fibro here - it is polymyalgia rheumatica which has a completely different cause. And bursitis is a common finding.
It sounds like trochanteric bursitis - which is often found in PMR. It will probably eventually respond to the oral pred but the blood supply isn't good so it takes a long time (took about 4 or 5 months for me when I first got pred). However, it does sometimes return and much better is a steroid injection into the area over the hip bone.It isn't into the joint so shouldn't need a hospital appointment for an ultrasound-guided injection. My GP is happy to do them for me and the first ones I had were done in A&E here where I live (because they always have orthopaedic specialists around).They just prodded the outer aspect of my thigh/hip until they found the place I squealed loudest and did the injection there!
But as Betty says - an x-ray should be done to rule out OA that is bad enough to need a new hip.
It depends on the yoga - I did heavily adapted Iyengha yoga with PMR but without pred. It helped mobility - so did Pilates. Both done after an aquafit class done at MY level, not anyone else's!
PS - some orthopaedic bunnies are not very good at recognising anything not entirely bone related!
Thanks...if it is bursitis (which I've had before in my other hip prior to poly), the physical therapist treated it with dry needling and ultrasound...worked great. Will let you know what she says next week.
ortho surg did a zillion X-rays, no OA, he said. I was glad!
will keep you posted, thanks!
I would be very grateful for some more advice about trochanteric bursitis and PMR.
I was diagnosed with PMR two years ago and have been lucky enough to have had quite an easy journey so far, mostly suffering with fatigue but very little pain.
A few weeks ago I had tapered to 5mgs Pred when I experienced aching in my pelvic girdle and fatigue, so increased to Pred to 7.5 and when didn't get relief of pain, in steps to 15mgs.I have been on15mgs for 10days and the fatigue and generalised acheing is now much improved but I have pain in my right hip which wakes me in the night. It is relieved quite quickly with Co-codamol (8/500mgs).I am wondering if I should continue to take the 15mgs Pred for a while longer or start to taper now. I also had a nasty attack of sciatica on the same side a few months ago which was confirmed by a GP.
I have been following this forum for the last 18mths and have found it very helpful and informative.
I have to say that I feel it would be far better to get your GP to order an x-ray of that hip to be sure it isn't OA or anything like that and try to reduce the oral pred at least back to the 7.5mg level fairly quickly if you can - it's a shame to lose all that progress if you don't need to. It was those sort of symptoms that always heralded a flare for me but by having them dealt with independently of the PMR made a big difference. Trochanteric bursitis usually responds well to a local steroid injection - and that saves increasing the oral dose to levels where you will have more side effects. The reduction to 5mg was obviously just a step too far.
The bursitis and the sciatic problem could well be due to and certainly exaccerbated by a lower back muscle problem - but an x-ray won't show that and most doctors would then tell you "nothing wrong". My usual suggestion is to find a sports physiotherapist or massage therapist - they work miracles for sports persons with muscle problems!
Thank you so much for your quick reply and helpful advice. I will try to get a quick appt with my GP. I noticed that there is a new sports physiotherapist at our local leisure centre so I will look into that too. Many thanks again.
My hip pain turned out to be referred pain from my spine. Apparently the muscles in my back were, as my therapist put it, "hard as bricks". She did some therapy (dry needling) over a few visits which sorted it out for me. I had been x-rayed prior to this and no arthritis in hip.
I have one hip that's very painful still . It's an inflamed bursa ( bursitis) . Which won't show up on an X-ray . You may need a MRI
Thanks! I can't have an MRI for medical reasons...but it sounds like it might be bursitis. I see the physical therapist on Friday for eval...she's way better at figuring things out than my doc. She fixed bursitis in my other hip (prior to pmr) 6 years ago.