the thing that really pushed me to call a rheumy (aside from the fact that the ortho i went to treated me like an idiot and was, himself, an idiot) was that i woke up one morning with pain in my right wrist. i had experienced pain in my left wrist for five months at that point - once it popped up in my right wrist, i was convinced i had ra.

my dx is based on bloodwork (rheum factor is negative), symptoms, and ultrasound with doppler imaging. but my pain does not seem to be truly bilateral...
-wrists: my left wrist hurts more than my right wrist. all the time; this is normal. my left index and middle fingers usually hurt more than any other fingers (my left index finger started twisting - not turning, twisting - about four years ago. my middle has started doing so too).
-shoulders: my shoulders only really started bothering me a few weeks ago. but now that i've had an mtx-free week, my left shoulder is dramatically worse than my right. so much so that i had trouble sleeping this morning.
-ankles: my left ankle bothers me intermittently; my right ankle hurts like heck. (could possibly be attributed to the cellulitis on my right calf, i think.)

my hips hurt equally and i've noticed a new phenomena in my low lower back or like the middle of my hips... a popping feeling when i move sometimes. not all of the time. a lot of the time. i notice it a lot. it doesn't hurt but it's a strange feeling. i hate cracking joints, and it doesn't really feel like that. it feels like it's between my spine and my hips, if that makes sense.

i'm sure it doesn't. it's terribly early and i've not slept well, even though i went to bed full of delicious food and love after a family dinner at our favorite steakhouse.

so anyway, how bilateral is 'bilateral' really?