over the last few days I've caught an awful cold! Coughs and sneezes and I feel dreadful! But not only the cold has pulled me down, but I've started to have symptoms of a flare up with my PMR,! not as bad as the symptoms I had when I was first diagnosed, but pain and a burning sensation in my thighs and I'm wobbly on my feet. Has anyone else felt like this when they've caught the common cold??? Xx
Can't say I've had a cold since taking Preds, which, I believe, is not uncommon, but, I get the impression from others that when a cold comes along it's usualy a humdinger. I do however have a travelling pain, one that spends a while in my thighs then when it clears up it move somewhere else like my shoulders, at least it feels like the same one. I'll give it a name if it stays around much longer.
Thank you Steve! Hopefully when the cold clears up the pain 'may' go away!! But I have a feeling that the immune system is busy fighting this cold the PMR has to wing it so to speak! 😟😔
Hello Andrea, what a bummer! I had 3 colds last year, one after the other. I felt pretty rough when each bold was at its zenith, but surprisingly I never had a flare or even symptoms of a flare. I put that down to the fact that I probably at that time was on a large enough dose of preds that covered my inflamation plus the extra trauma of the colds.
members on this site have had to up their preds when they've caught a cold because they are experiencing symptoms of a flare, could it be because the level of prednisolone they are currently on is just the correct level to keep the inflamation under control but is not quite enough to then cope with the extra trauma of a cold. Perhaps you could up your dose to the last dose just for a couple of days whilst the cold us at its worse. Get better soon. Regards, christina
Hi Christine, strangely enough I only reduced last Monday from 17.5 to 15mg as if my body just hasn't got used to the lower dose when this cold kicked in!!., feeling a down depressed about it all too!., I'm sure I'll pick up again! Xx
Yes, it has happened to me. I guess that there is more inflammation in the system due to the cold and the regular dosage of prednisone cannot fully cover it.
Sensible thing to do is go back to 17.5mg and wait there till the cold has gone away.
I had a really bad flu in Feb and also had a flare - it took me 5 or 6 weeks to get over it. I uped the pred for 4 weeks then went back to my normal dose. I was pretty weak for a time, but soon back to PMR 'normal', so don't worry.
Absolutely - in fact, more than likely the apparent flare is your body's response to the reduction as well as the effect of the cold on you.
PMR-type pain that starts quickly after a reduction has been described as "steroid withdrawal rheumatism" - a sneaky habit of pred-reduction is a flare of the symptoms for which you are taking the pred anyway.
And there are long-standing recommendations that any dose reduction should never be more than 10% of the current dose. At 20mg that is 2mg, at 15mg it will be 1.5mg so you are inbetween. It may only have been 3/4mg more than is the ideal maximum - but many many people will tell you how much difference 1/2mg can make. We used to restrict our suggestions for 1mg reductions to the lower doses, below 10mg, but it has become increasingly obvious that people do much better when they restrict the size of the drop to 1mg even at this stage - or spread it out using the "dead slow and nearly stop" reduction I use and keep talking about. 1mg at a time that works and doesn't make you feel rubbish is far preferable to 2.5mg that either doesn't work well or makes you fell ill again. That isn't the object of the exercise.
Hello Eileen! I always have great advice off this forum thank you!! I had a feeling that the 'flare like symptoms' could be due to a reduction in pred from 17.5 to 15mg. I've rested up now for nearly 2 days and I'm feeling a lot better!! I think I've overdone it too last week before the cold as I was feeling on top of the world!! Then came down with a dump!., I will know next time I taper to take it easy even if I feel I could take on the world! Xx
Doesn't matter how "on top of the world" you feel - that is contributed to by the pred dose as well! Your body inside is still suffering from an illness that makes it intolerant to acute exercise - it doesn't register you're making it do too much as it would normally and then it doesn't repair the damage done to muscles when you have been doing things.
Maybe you know this - when you are "training" in sport and you are building trained muscles it happens because you are causing tiny tears in the endothelium of the muscles when you are overusing them (relatively speaking that is). That is part of what causes the pain and stiffness that is common the next day. Then as these bits heal they are better prepared for the next time - and eventually you are "trained" and able to do far more.
When you have PMR you cause more damage to the muscles because you can't feel it (not known why) and they are also not working properly. Then it takes far longer to recover as they heal. You CAN train with PMR and increase the amount you can manage to do - but you need to do far less to start with, increase the amount in far smaller steps and rest more inbetween, I always kept at least one day free between sessions and if I was at all sore didn't have another go until the pain had gone. Doing that I used to start skiing in December doing just 2 or 3 very short runs with rests on the lift inbetween and by mid-Feb could have a decent full morning skiing and even manage longer runs if I was careful. Of course I then had to start all over again the next December
Hi Andrea,
I agree that it might be best to go back up a bit until you are feeling better. You have kind of pushed it with doing so much and then gettin a cold so the PMR might be pushing back.
My experience with flares is that you don't want to have one at all because it takes much longer to get to the dose that will manage your symptoms.
I hope you're feeling better soon.
Hugs, Diana🌸
I recently had a PMR flare-up following knee surgery, an allergy attack and bronchitis. So, I'm not sure what triggered it, but I suspect that you become vulnerable whenever your immune system is compromised. Hope you feel better soon.
Thank you all so much for your replies and support!! 😄😄 xx