Even if you exercise and eat well, you’re not surprised as you age year after year that your body starts to ache and feel stiff. You figure it’s just normal wear-and-tear arthritis, also known as osteoarthritis.
But there’s something different about your pain. You feel achy all over. You’re especially stiff in your upper body and thighs. Your joints hurt, but so does everything else.
At the Rheumatology Center of New Jersey, our board-certified rheumatologists have experience recognizing and diagnosing a wide range of inflammatory conditions, including polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR).
If you have aches and pains that don’t quite match typical diagnoses, we can conduct a full evaluation at one of our offices in Somerville, Flemington, or Monroe, New Jersey.
Why is it so hard to diagnose polymyalgia rheumatica? Here are a few reasons.
If you’ve been trying to find the cause of your aches and pains, you probably already know that a lot of inflammatory diseases share symptoms. This can make them hard to differentiate, especially when rare diseases often seem, at first, like common conditions.
For instance, only 5 out of every 10,000 people in the United States experience PMR. In contrast, about 1 in 4 American adults have arthritis.
Almost twice as many women get PMR, compared with men. Most sufferers are over 70 and few are under 50. That demographic coincides with more common chronic pain conditions, such as arthritis. In addition, PMR shares many symptoms with other diseases and conditions, including:
If you have these types of symptoms, you may have already been misdiagnosed with a number of other conditions. Common differential diagnoses for PMR include:
Your doctor may rule out these other conditions before diagnosing you with PMR.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to diagnose PMR. We may conduct a number of tests to rule out other conditions, including cancer and other muscle diseases.
For instance, we may order a complete blood count to see if you have certain markers. Elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels may indicate the presence of inflammation. But not everyone with PMR has high ESR or CRP.
We may use imaging studies of your joints to detect inflammation. Because PMR is also associated with giant cell arteritis (GCA), we may conduct imaging studies of your head to determine if you have inflammation in your aorta or other arteries.
If we suspect GCA based on imaging studies, we may need to take a biopsy. We would remove a small bit of an artery segment to examine it for signs of inflammation.
Every case is individual, but typically, we start with lifestyle interventions that can help your body turn down the inflammation and give you pain relief and mobility. We may work with you to create an exercise regimen that helps you build strong, flexible joints.
We may also recommend quitting cigarettes, alcohol, and other habits that negatively affect your body’s tissues. We may adjust your diet and, if necessary, help you lose excess weight.
The gold standard treatment for PMR is low-dose glucocorticoids. These can greatly diminish your pain and increase your mobility within just a few days. If you have headaches or flu-like symptoms, as in GCA, we may recommend a higher dose.
Once you get a diagnosis of PMR, and once you get some relief from pain through steroids and lifestyle interventions, your journey may not be over. Because GCA is a real risk, you should contact us immediately if you:
Aches, pains, and limited mobility are not normal, no matter what age you are, and you shouldn’t have to try to accommodate them. Get the answers and diagnosis that you need, so you can start to feel more comfortable and get back to your daily activities.
If you think you may have PMR or another inflammatory type of arthritis call our helpful team or use our online form to request an appointment today. We have offices in Somerville, Monroe, and Flemington, New Jersey.
