kayva
I haven't posted in a long time, but I do follow the posts as best I can. Something very unexpected happened to me and I will share it with you. In April I wasn't feeling "right" - and it didn't seem to have much to do with the PMR. I was (and am) on 4mg prednisone and holding. A nurse in the internal medicine clinic insisted that I have a stress test (which I almost cancelled). I took the test - lasted 3 minutes on the treadmill and the next thing I knew I was in a wheelchair being rushed to the cardiology wing. After a cardiac catherization, it was determined that I had blocked arteries to the heart and an aortic abdominal aneurysm. That was followed by a quadruple bypass operation. The doctors wanted to take me off the prednisone but my rheumatologist refused. Now I understand why they tell you to inform your doctors (and dentists) when you are on or have been on prednisone. It takes about twice as long to heal and I was a walking black and blue human with terrible bruises particularly on my arms. It is really a catch 22 situation. I tried to taper to 3 1/2 mg but pain returned to my shoulders so I went back to 4mg. I look forward to a nap every afternoon but I can't tell whether it is the fatigue from the PMR or the surgery. Tomorrow I go in for the aneursym repair and they say that's a bigger operation than the Open Heart so I now have another couple of months to recupe from that. The upshot, of course, was if I hadn't had the PMR and the prednisone my recovery would probably been much quicker. I hope all of you are coping okay and keep posting.