Ha! I know what you mean. What pain is RA, what pain is caused by something else? Hard to know. For years I blamed every ache and pain I had on fibromyalgia. I was wrong. Now I wonder. Should I mention this to the rheumatologist or is it caused by something totally unrelated. I have a lot of deep muscle pain. RA? Fibro? Something else? I've always felt that if I knew what was causing the pain then it was easier to deal with. Not knowing bugs me.
sherrie

I don't believe there's any such thing as a stupid question, and this is a question I have, too, especially because when I started with pain I was diagnosed with RMO. That is very painful, but I find the RA pain is a different character of pain (and worse even than the RMO pain). Hard to explain, but the RMO pain was more of an ache, where RA feels more like heat and grit, except when I get a bad flare, then it feels like electricity. That might make sense to no one but me. Now that I have both in my left foot, it's usually harder to pinpoint which pain is which - except today I know what's in my big toe is the RA-type pain. The rest of it is kind of a mix. Sorry. No help at all!

Just reading the title of this post, my response was, "with bloodhounds and a rifle."

I've had 2 MRIs in the last 9 months, Sally. The first was only of my foot and only showed the RMO. The second showed RMO and RA in my foot, but it's kind of mixed. No wonder my pain feels mixed in my foot! The rest of the body scan showed areas of RA, but I can identify it as RA pain. I also have inflammatory osteoarthritis, but it has never given me pain.

I am still trying to figure it out.. I think it may be the atrovastatin that I am taking... it causes muscle aches..and boy do I have those.. I am in pain everyday.. so I have stopped taking them..It says it may take 2 months to get rid of the muscle aches.. Well I was able to get out of bed with hardly any pain after the first night without it... I am hoping that is what is causing all this pain.. I sure would like to be able to do things again without hurting so much...anything willbe better than how I am now...

Not a stupid question at all!!! In fact I do agree with Lynne, there are NO stupid questions.
I have wondered the same thing! I posted about a lump in ankle.... RA?? or not??

Before my dx of RA I blamed everything on different things.... neck and shoulder pain = ceiling fan blowing on me..... foot pain = shoes.... knee pain = getting old.... I had an excuse for everything wrong, and then the dx and the whole picture came together!

Cindy

That's my understanding, too, Sally. The podiatrist who ordered the original MRI just relied on the radiologists impression, but my rheumy looked at both MRIs and was able to interpret the differences between the RMO and the RA. They present differently, and she knows RA very well even though she doesn't know RMO at all either. Hardly any docs in the world know RMO because it's so rare, but she could see that those changes were not normal and were not RA.

I find my ra pain feels similar in all joints. It's the same feeling for me. So that's how I know. I'm fairly young and don't have a lot of problems. No diabetes, no osteoarthritis, so I can attribute fairly accurately whether or not it's ra. The only problem I've had is my neck. The toddler sleeps with us and she wakes sometimes. She wants to sleep on my chest, so I sit up and fall asleep in bed. My necks been hurting, and I can't tell if it's from sleeping funny crick, sleeping funny induced ra inflammation, or just plain ra. I think with time it becomes more obvious.

My mom and I both have RA, and sometimes we (sort of dementedly..) laugh about the fact that if we broke a bone, we probably would just attribute the pain and weakness to RA, and not realize it was a broken bone! My experience with RA is that it comes as all sorts of pain--stiff muscles that hurt to move, sharp shooting pains, throbbing aches, dull aches, feelings of cold deep in the muscles, generalized discomfort at a sort of "sub-pain" level, and feelings of tight tendons and muscles being overstretched. I know that doesn't help clarify anything, so I think that probably, as Sally says, diagnostic imaging is the way to go in distinguishing between different sources of pain. And it seems to me that you and your doctor will need to distinguish between RA and OA, because disease modifying treatments for RA won't help joints affected by OA, and OA may make joint replacements necessary in the future.

Thanks all...

sally Iwill talk to the rheumy next week about a MRI..

SpringDaf..thanks for all the info. I was diagnosed with RA a few weeks ago, not a complete surprise as I have had abnormal blood work and symptoms for years. Alone with a terrible rheumatoligst. When I first started having problems 7 years ago, (2 weeks after I turned 40) I woke with awful pain in my hip. I went to see an orto because I had never had any pain like this before. He took an xray, and said I had OA in my hip and would probably need a hip replacement at some point. ( I guess he could determine if it was OA and not RA from an xray) Soon after that is when I found out about my high RA factor and SED rates. I guess my hip problmes could be OA..and the hands, fingers, wrists, elbows and ankles and knee could be RA..

I was just curious if when my lower back and neck hurt if that could be related to RA...This is all kind frustrating. I see my rheumy on the 11th, I have lots of questions for him.

Thanks again.