I had Myofascial damage before RA. Shoulder through ribs & chest.
If RA can include ligaments & tendons then makes sense that it could cause some issues.
There is connective tissue through the entire body.
I feel for you. Nasty area to have pain. Mine throbs, hurts to high heaven & sets off horrid chest pain.
Be careful, recently I've heard a few people having tests not picking up on the problems. I've also heard the gallbladder can be hard to detect.
Get rechecked if this continues.
Stay safe.
Sammy

I have muscle pain in my back no one can touch my lower back not even lightly. I have no clue what it's from it started when I was a dancer (ballet) for a long time and fell once on my bum and ever since then my backs not been the same. But the doctors say it's muscle related which makes me feel better knowing it's not a disc but I have had muscle relaxers in the past and it helps at the time but the actual pain is always present when the meds wear off. So I just deal with it. But I always wondered the same thing your asking.

There is also many lymph nodes on the sides of our ribs. Maybe your Lymph Nodes are inflamed. Mine ache when I am getting a cold.

I agree with Sally, costrochondritis. Some say its painful enough to feel like a heart attack sometimes. There's varying degrees of pain. Anywhere with a joint can be affected.

As one who has myofascial pain pre-RA dx and has tendon involvement now I can attest to the fact that RA can & does affect the muscles. Everything connects to something else. If I'm not mistaken there's a synovial sheath that covers muscles/fascia/tendons/ligaments and its the synovium the disease attacks. 51% explains the details better than I can but that's the gist.

i had the same pain as you described last week and i realized i skipped my antacids for the last 3-4 days. then i started my antacids and the pain is gone.
i had the same pain below the ribs and deep inside the gallbladder/spleen. pls check if you have any gastritis. just a hint.

take care.

Dean MA, I had a similar issue last spring. Took a hard fall on porch carrying groceries in during a rain. So hard that I twisted going down and even got another stress fracture because a foot hit the side of the house. Noticed some rib soreness, but it didn't seem major at the time.

I had worked up to doing 90lb pulldowns and almost free style chin ups at gym. When I tried, agony ripped through the bottom of ribcage. Would even wake up when I'd roll over in sleep and sharp pain would hit. Talked to school nurse about it. She said pulled muscle and/or tendon. Just don't do anything that causes it to hurt for a while. Took six months to finally quit. And now I am back where I started at gym - 20lb pull downs and no chin ups.

It could be RA, it could be an injury you didn't realize was anything. Hopefully you figure it out soon.

Thank you all for replies. Much appreciated!

I tend to blame RA for everything. I have not had the symptoms you are experiencing, but this disease is weird enough to do just about anything. Hope you feel better soon.