Joint Pain

lately I have been having strong pain in my knee joints. It seems like it probably is tendonitis since it is getting progressively more with time. Can touch the tendon and it is sore on both knees. I was riding my bicycle 2 Saturdays ago and was hit by a car. Not hard, but still enough to throw me to the ground. Dr. doesn't want to perscribe anti-infamitory meds cause of the CD. Is it time to see a Rheumy? Just wondering what y'all think. Have a great Thanksgiving!!!

Hi Randy - haven't seen you about lately! Of course, I've been somewhat scarce myself. As we age, are joints are prone to deteriorate. People that have been athletic during their life can be prone to have even more degenerative changes than their age would suggest. I'm telling you this because my complaints about joint problems to the PCP over the course of 9 years were all attributited to me getting older and the years I spent skiing. Then I was Dx with CD, the joint pain got out of control and I was finally sent to a rheumy. Then it was discovered that the years of untreated spondyloarthroparthy with enthesitis [inflammation of the tendons at the insertion point into the bone] had caused calcification of many of my tendons.

My quadriceps tendon is very calcified and can be felt if one knows where to press. It is still prone to inflammation next to the area that is calcified. It feels like tendonitis not knee joint pain. My rheumy said it is important to keep tendon inflammation to a minimum because untreated inflammation can lead to calcification.

So, yes get thy self to a rheumy! And I am so glad that the car versus Randy event was not worse. ~~ Ides

Oh yeah. The cold is doing awful AWFUL things to my hips, back, knees. If what I've got is myalgias...its killing my left arm (elbow, muscles, wrist, shoulder blade to spine) and I'm feeling twinges in my right wrist now. I can feel it too...and there's no answer to whether it'll ever go away.

Hi Randy,

I wanted to just give you something else to consider given your history with all the wonderful meds that IBD patients must take, especially prednisone.  My daughter developed knee pain, swelling, popping, creaking grinding noises and after a negative x-ray, we too were sent to the rheumy thinking it was arthritis.  Thank goodness the doc suggested an MRI because that's when we discovered a problem with her bones.  Just to rule out a potentially serious problem, I'd suggest an MRI to put your mind at ease that it's not something like avascular necrosis (aka osteonecrosis). 

Since my daughter's diagnosis, we were blindsided by the possibility of this risk after taking prednisone and feel that there was insufficient disclosure of this risk.  She was only on it for 4 months, but she was on high doses (90mg) for a couple of weeks.  As a family, we are devastated by this (she's 21), and after many months of asking why and being angry, we realize it could be much worse and have turned to raising awareness and trying to get the prednisone label to disclose this risk.  The label warns of osteoporosis, bone pain and fracture, but not that your bones may die.  I try to spread the word so that other's are informed and can be on the lookout for the symptoms and hopefully get treatment early on in the course of the disease progression. 

HTH,

Elise