I was wanting to explain the RA pain today. Yes, it feels like the joint is out of its socket. As if you could push it back in and the pain would go away. I have experienced this in almost all of my joints. Hips, knees, elbows, wrists, shoulders. I didn't know anything could hurt so bad.

Nerot,

So this is "normal" RA pain?

When it's in my knees and normal pain, yes! That's how it feels in my knees.

My ankles feel like a horrific sprain, fresh and hot with pain as if I just twisted it.

RA pain in hands and feet/toes? During a flare precisely? Precisely feels like I beat the h-e-double hockey sticks out of my sheetrock wall. Like my hands are broken from a drunken nightmarish rage. That's a flare.

Normal twinge in elbows? Like a catch needing to pop, a sensitive catch with minor pain.

Weird. Totally depends on the joint and whether or not it's being controlled with meds. Flares feel like I beat the wall for 24 hrs straight. Natural childbirth don't hold a candle, I swear. Normal controlled, medically speaking, pain....totally different.

I think we can all relate at one point or another. My half sis with Ra described her flares the exact as me....beating walls all damn day feeling. Pike fatigue, throbbing, horrible broken fingers pain.

That said regular Ra pain for me, depending on the joint, does feel like a joint painfully needing a good pop back into socket.

I've also had that 'out of socket' feeling - hips and shoulders primarily. There are days when i'm walking along just fine then all of a sudden my hip 'pops' and the pain shoots down my leg and feels like it's dislocated but I know it isn't. Pain lasts for a little while then I'm fine again, then I'm walking along and with no warning bam... hits me again.
Have to assume it's normal RA or fibro pain (I also have fibro)

yes secret, that is it. i've been dealing with that exactly in both wrists, hips, shoulders and my left thumb this weekend. from Saturday evening through sunday it was almost impossible to lift my right foot four inches off the floor. last week i convinced myself that i could tolerate milk.....consumed a gallon and paid the price. fine now after getting it all out of my system, 4 days of anti-inflamms (generic mobic one/day) and MAKING myself move/work each joint as much as i could possibly stand to break up the calcium building in the joints. my fault, did it to myself. i wanted to try and gain back some weight.

it feels like my bones are actually "growing apart" from the joint. for hands/wrists, i use a stress ball thingie and squeeze it as much as i can as often as possible. shoulders and elbows i start by just trying to lift them away from my body, then wind milling them. hips, i lay flat lift foot four inches and put my ankle over the opposite knee and let the bent knee fall of it's own weight toward the floor....do the other leg, pull both knees to my chest and then roll up onto my feet. easy squats help as well. you must move secret.

Yep sounds like my shoulders.
Hands(fingers), feet (toes) I'll get stabbing, aching stiff pains. Where they won't bend. Then burning pain.
Can feel like something's going to snap or break also or deep deep ache.
My neck even aches & burns, feels like it's going to snap if I turn on my bad days. Or hurts just to touch or lay on the pillow.
Never know what or when anymore.

Today it's my ribs. Which is rare for this type of pain.
I wonder at times how you can hurt so much in do many ways in so many places.
Sammy

yep, i have this feeling in my wrists, hips, knees. its not that bad for me. i have very slight pain and this happens mostly when i am in flare. whenever this happens i rest that joint for sometime and then move it slowly and return to my work. i dont pressure that joint for atleast until my pain lessens.

I have pain in my fingers, thumbs mostly that move down into my wrist. (I woke this morning with awful left wrist pain) My right ankle stays swollen and feels like a sprain. Knees ache. Toes hurt and sometimes feel like someone is sticking pins in them. I have shooting pains in my elbows from time to time and both hips hurt.

I feel like I spend every night in a medieval torture chamber on the rack. Feels like my arms and legs were ripped out.
I get sharp pains in my knee caps like someone is stabbing me with an icepick. When my knees are really bad, it feels like I have Ace bandages wrapped super tight around them and it's hard to bend them.
When my hands are bad, I describe the pain like someone smashed my hands with a sledgehammer.
My muscles feel like I benched pressed 400lbs and ran 20 miles. Burning and sore, tight and stiff.
When my feet are bad, I feel like I'm walking on marbles and my right ankle is broken.
RA sucks and I hate it!

Sarah3478 - that's how I feel. I was sitting here trying to think about what to type and my mind just won't work!

That ice pick in the knees is just awful!!

I'm just glad my meds help - just wish it helped 100%.

This was an interesting thread. I have so much pain in so many different areas that I was wondering how someone could describe RA pain. Some of this I can relate to. The feeling of a sledgehammer crushing my hands, the joint out of socket sometimes, the feeling of sprain in ankles and wrist, yes. The icepick in the knee, although my knee is OA, not RA. What about the other pains though? The feeling that you have been punched so hard in the middle of your chest that the pain goes all the way though to your back? The deep hard muscle pain in upper arms, thighs? The sore, achy, stiffness in the neck that never quite goes away? The violent twisting feeling running down my leg to shin.............do any of these sound familiar to anyone also?

Pain association descriptions for me come from childhood pain feelngs. That sudden slam, perhaps a burning, similar to when scalded or grasped a hot pan from the oven in error, and then a deep aching that is both sudden and continuous at the same time. This is especially true of my hands and knees.

Sometimes a stabbing and twisting feeling. Even sometimes grinding. Also weakness and suddenness - picking up something because hand/wrist/elbow not immediately aching and then. slam, like the pain when you catch a body part in a door... Of course items sometimes get dropped.

I have a washable spa carpet in my kitchen as my ankles and knees sometime 'misfire"' and I was having falls. The pain was in the fall rather than the failing joint.

The wake you up night pains and the tight pain of clawed hands which for me has been greatly helped by the tight compressing gloves are aching and stabbing.

A common description I have heard of general arthritis is that of glass in a joint but I havent actually had that. I do think RA pain is significantly different from osteo but as we develop osteo in the joints I suppose I can expect that too.

When I see a post like this I want to download it and take it to my rheumy who I feel hasnt a clue about the pain in RA.