Taking the strain
Polymyalgia rheumatica affects around 278,000 people in the UK - twice as many women as men - and can often be tricky to diagnose. But help is out there, as our writer discovered
by PATSY WESTCOTT
one day I woke up with a cricked neck that didn't go away. But when, within weeks, the muscles of my shoulders, upper arms, hips and thighs also felt stuck and achy it dawned on me that something else was wrong. Previously active, I found just turning over in bed was a Herculean effort. Going upstairs was painfully slow and so hard I often resorted to crawling.
Physiotherapy didn't help, nor painkillers. I was at my wits' end until I remembered something I once wrote for Saga Magazine about polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR). The autoimmune disease is the commonest inflammatory rheumatic disease to affect older people, with an average age of onset of 73 - my age exactly. Around 278,000 people in the UK have PMR, which is on the rise, yet still under-recognised. Research suggests that an estimated one in 100 women, and about one in 200 men, over 40 will have a diagnosis in their lives.