Have had swelling in my feet legs and fingers for a while and am getting worried about it my Rummy took 6 viles of blood to see whats going on with me so far no info from her although it has only been a few days. Seem day by day I get worse very discourageing has anyone else had problems with swelling ???? I am on 15mg of pred. Can anyone help me
I have swollen feet and ankles which I was told was due to fluid retention from the steroids. I did try manual lymphatic massage which sort of worked but I found the lady who did it a bit spooky. I now have foot and leg massage which I love.
The swelling could be from a number of things, so I know you are anxious to hear what the rheumatologist thinks. I know that swelling in feet/legs could be (and in my case may be) from heart failure, although doc is not ready to give me a definite diagnosis quite yet.
However! I am 84 years old, probably a lot older than you, so I wouldn't worry at this point about heart failure. Plenty of other symptoms go with it, too.
Since you have finger swelling, I assume the doc is looking into rheumatoid arthritis in that connection--
You didn't say how much relief you have gotten from the 15 mg. prednisone, but I assume you don't have a lot of pain, right? Meaning, you (probably) do have PMR.
Naturally the swelling worries you, but I hope you get some good news that it's relatively harmless. Maybe you'll let us know?
Good luck--
Have doctors given you any advice about this? I try to keep my feet up whenever possible to increase circulation. (I sleep with my legs on the headboard and my head where my feet used to be :-)) There are elastic tights which are helpful for some conditions. I had to remove my wedding ring, fingers were like sausages :-)
Swelling in hands and feet is not uncommon in PMR - I ended up needing a much larger shoe size! Pred can also lead to fluid retention and of course that just adds to it.
Mine improved a lot when I was in hospital for a few weeks and had my feet up almost all the time but came back when I went home. Eventually I tried manual lymph drainage and the physio did just the worse leg at the first session - within 3 days both legs were near enough back to normal and it hasn't returned since. It really is worth a try if you can find a nice practitioner!