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Joint and muscle pain anyone? Please help!

Hi, all. I have had severe joint and muscle pain since I have been diagnosed, which was May of 2010. I started on Remicade, and it helped a bit with the joint pain in my legs, but I still had severe stomach pain (which seems to be muscular?). Long story short, I had reactions to Remicade, and I switched to Cimzia in 2011 and added Methotrexate in June of 2012. Cimzia took care of my stomach pain for the most part, but the joint and muscle pain is awful. Sometimes it hurts to walk or hold a pencil. It's mostly my legs and hands, but it's not just the joints in my legs. My doctor and NP's are stumped to why I have such bad joint and muscle pain. My doctor's niece actually has the same problem and her doctor doesn't know either. I've felt hopeless for a long time about this, and I just don't know what to do. Exercise is so painful, but I have gained weight because I had to quit all year round basketball. I can't take any Ibuprofen or Aleve, obviously, and Tylenol doesn't help at all. Sometimes I give in and take Aleve, because it's either that or don't go to school. I would never wish this pain on anyone, but I'm really hoping someone can help me out. Oh, and RA has been ruled out. Thank you!
 

Cat-a-Tonic

Super Moderator
You said RA has been ruled out - have they ruled out other forms of arthritis? I have mild arthritis in my right hip (all my joints hurt when I'm flaring, that just seems to be a flare thing - but my arthritic hip hurts even when the IBD is in remission). My GP diagnosed my hip arthritis via an x-ray and he then sent me to physical therapy, which did help quite a bit. You've said that exercise is painful, but a good physical therapist should be able to show you how to do some gentle exercises that shouldn't cause pain and hopefully will help. I still have some hip pain from time to time but it's not nearly as bad as it was before I went through PT. Good luck, I hope that helped a little bit!
 
Thank you! It did help. I've gotten x-rays on my major joints just recently actually, and it didn't show anything. Do you think there still could be something that isn't being picked up? Sorry to hear about your hip :(
 
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