Hi all,
Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a forty one year old woman, and not new to back and knee pain - I've had those for a *long* time. However, due to lack of medical insurance, I've been either self-medicating with copious amounts of OTC medicines or bearing it. About 15 years ago, a chiropractor diagnosed my back as "Digenerative Disc Disease" but no one else has confirmed that until recently. My knees started going 'round about 10 years ago.
In April of 2006, I tried to turn left across a lane of stopped traffic, but a lady in a mini van decided to jump the outer lane and our cars didn't like being in the same place at the same time. The accident totaled my car, but I was lucky to walk away with a wrenched back and a torn tendon in my right wrist. Unfortunate that it was my *right* wrist, but fortunate that it wasn't much worse.
Anyway, once I wasn't able to use my *right* wrist, I started to use my left hand as much as I could. That's when *both* wrists started to hurt. And once I had to walk everywhere (because my car was totaled and the bus system in my town was lousy), the rest of my joints started to hurt. My ankles hurt. My knees hurt. My hips sometimes hurt. My elbows hurt. My wrists hurt. And every little joint in my fingers hurt.
But, not a one of them is swollen. They're not red, and they're not hot to the touch. They. Just. Hurt. They're tender to the touch. If someone touches them, they hurt.
My GP thinks I have rheumatoid arthritis. She also thinks I have osteoarthritis in my knees and back. I think she's right about the knees and back. I go to see a rheumatologist next month. Maybe he can figure it all out.
Here's the rub. I can't take anything for the pain. NSAIDs have a strange effect on me - they cause confusion (it's on the PI sheet). I didn't know what was causing it until someone pointed it out and when I stopped taking them, voila! no more confusion. I only wish I'd figured it out - oh, about twenty years ago!
You might investigate antibiotic Minocin at www.roadback.org