How did your RA start?
Hello all! I have not yet been diagnosed with RA. However, I have not felt great for about 2 years. The fatigue and lack of energy are the worst. I do have Fibromyalgia, but it's relatively mild. However, in reaching that diagnosis, my labs showed an elevated RF of 30 (range is >14). I don't have a significant amount of pain in any certain spot. Odd things are happening though. I get random intermittent body aches, like a flu feeling, but they are short in duration. I developed trigger finer literally overnight. Also, my right thumb mc joint began hurting when I grasp something and that developed over night as well. I also now (months later) have developed some sort of bony, painful knot on the side of that joint. Sometimes my hands are swollen in the morning, but no redness, stiffness, significant pain, etc. I do tend to seem to have problems with my tendons though and have for years. I guess my question is, since this doesn't sound like classic RA symptoms, does it sound like something else? Possibly not RA? For all that have been clinically diagnosed, does anyone have a similar story as mine? It's extremely frustrating to not know what is going on, and I'm beginning to wonder if these symptoms are "all in my head". 🙁
For me it was toe cramps in March of 2017 now it effects all of my joints. However, in hindsight, I developed photosensitivity to sunlight last year and have had joint pains for a couple of years. Coincidence or did it flare up for the first time in March? I just attributed the joint pains to getting older and the photosensitivity - who knows, I get weird stuff. I told my Rheumatologist that I had ITP and she said once AID can increase odds for another. And it just now occurred to me - two years ago I had pleurisy and my wife teased me because "no one gets pleurisy anymore", but maybe that was an early sign of RA. Who knows really, but at this point, I don't feel it matters because it's a pain now. Get it, a pain. Haha - I try to find humor as often as possible.
I was diagnosed over thirty years ago. What made me go to the Dr was that i had difficulty getting up from squatting or being on the floor. Other than that it was very mild I guess. My wife at the time had Cystic fibrosis and that took a lot of our focus. Of course over the years I have gotten worse and have other problems as well. But it seemed a simple diagnosis by just doing lab work.
Thirty year gang here also! I am still upright (mostly), though, so I can’t complain too much. Or can I? I have been through the wringer because of my RA - heart attack, pneumonia, cancer, multiple surgeries - the list goes on and on and it has all been quite a thing. I, unfortunately, am also seronegative, which means I have no RA markers in my blood and nothing shows up positive in the RA blood tests. As you can imagine that makes things substantially more difficult when it comes to getting doctors to believe you - or at least it did. Now I have so much damage and so long a medical history that it doesn’t take much convincing now. You are not alone. Keep on keepin’ on, DPM
