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not joint pain but muslce or tendon pain?

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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 9/18/2012 3:12 AM (GMT 0)
hi all,

i do get joint pain.. but sometimes what i get more is muscle strain or tendon strain. this could be after being activie and sometimes it just seems to come out of the blue. i am wondering if this is common.. i will be trying to see my dr. soon since i want to get a new GI and get a second opinion.. sometimes i doubt i'm dealing with CD.. or i have CD and something else.. my symptoms seem so varied and often very different that what most people post on the boards.

thanks in advance,
chrissy
Posted 9/18/2012 3:18 AM (GMT 0)
Chrissy, when are you going to start taking meds exactly?

Joint pain and/or tendon pain (enthesitis) afflicts about 25% of people with inflammatory bowel disease. One popular theory is that inflammation in the gut triggers inflammation in the joints. If you treat the gut effectively, the joint pain should subside.

I take sulfazine to treat my colon AND my joints. It's an old arthritis med that has been shown to be very effective at treating inflammatory bowel disease and the joint pain that can come with it. Going gluten free also helped my joints feel better (the sulfazine took care of the enthesitis I had in my hands, wrists and elbows, the diet seemed to mostly help my chronic knee pain).
Posted 9/18/2012 3:42 AM (GMT 0)
I dunno- I really don't. I have inflmation-- that I know and I can feel it but I don't seem to have anything affecting my guts. I don't (or rarely) get stomach cramps, I don't get pains after digestion etc and I never have D. It almost feels that whatever is affecting me is somewhere else. Yes, parts of my pelvis do get inflamed, I get fevers, lower back pain where it is just tender to touch the bone, I bruise easily, hair falling out, had low iron for years...

I guess I just attribute the External manifestations with the severity of the crohn's - if mine isnt severe then why are the pains so bad?

I am hoping to see a rhemy-- maybe I should try the meds but now my GI dr says I don't need them!
Posted 9/18/2012 3:27 PM (GMT 0)
It can be very confusing... they consider my Crohn's to be "subtle", yet my arthritis and enthesitis is horrendous and it's not related to my abdominal flares at all. My sed rate (the inflammatory marker) was as high as 90 before Remicade, even then I didn't have many stomach issues, just lots of arthritis. My stomach flares about once a year, but my other issues are constant... so, you can have a very confusing case as well, it so hard to figure out sometimes because it can affect so much in our bodies, good luck to you, feel better!
Posted 9/18/2012 4:17 PM (GMT 0)
thanks snowbomb63! your description sounds like mine and i looked up 'enthesitis' and it's excatly what i have. why didn't any dr. tell me this? i have mentioned numerous times that it feels like my bones or tendons heart.

what do you do to treat your enthesitis? just do maintenance meds for crohn's? or do you do something else??

i am leaning towards starting my meds now... now that i see what is going on.
Posted 9/19/2012 1:18 AM (GMT 0)
No problem, happy to help, your case does sound a lot like mine. Honestly, I was diagnosed with so many different rheumatological things before I got the right diagnosis of enthesitis, I don't think most doctors are familiar enough with it. It is so painful, sometimes it causes fevers and sometimes I even feel like my whole body has the flu, I can hardly move at all. Treating it is so tricky, I'm afraid I don't have the best news there for you. Someone here told me to try sulfasalazine, so you should ask about that. I use a small dose of prednisone ( if I don't I can barely function), Remicade, and oxycontin for the pain. Even with those three things, it's difficult, but it has become tolerable most days at least. If you need to talk more, please feel free to email me, I know how hard this is and I'm glad to listen or try to help you. Best of luck!
Posted 9/19/2012 1:55 AM (GMT 0)
thanks again.. i'd love to keep in touch and would love to hear more of your stories and how you're doing day to day... also if you tried any alternative approaches and if they worked.

my pain flares up and down.. it's not unbearable but i do have days where i wonder if this gets any worse... i don't know what i'd do with myself. it's difficult when quality of life is affected so much. i try to be a trooper but i do have to get it across to doctors that i am in constant pain.. even my hubby didn't know until i told him today.. he says 'well you never complain' and i just had to explain to him that although i don't talk about it, i am suffering and in pain most days.

how old are you snowbomb? i am in my late 30s but feel so much older with these pains.. i pray it doesn't worsen with age. i try to stay active but it's difficult when you're hurting.. sometimes moving helps.. other times i get stiff in the AM.

i have had few gastro issues.. i have had a major phase of poor appetite maybe 2 times in the last 1.5 years.. it was unlike me. now i eat as healthy as i can and i'm hoping that is helping.. i feel i can eat whatever within reason. i have no D.. i do get constipated now and then.

the crohn's was the first thing they saw and diagnosed me with when they just started doing tests.. sometimes i doubt if that's what i have since they stopped with any further analysis.. hopefully seeing a rhmey will help. do you feel it's the crohn's that is responsible for what you're doing thru?
Posted 9/19/2012 2:27 AM (GMT 0)
Chrissy, I'd love it if you emailed me, so I could give you more details than I'd like here, if you click on my name here and go to my info, you'll get my email info.
However, I do understand where you're coming from, believe me. The quality of my life has been severely affected over the years as well. I am 52, when I wake up in the morning, I feel more like 92! The first few hours of each day are the worst..
I do have gastro issues for sure, daily D for years, and in the beginning of my diagnosis which was about 10 years ago, lots of pain and vomiting, but that all seems to be in remission, but the arthritis is just getting worse honestly. When it first started, it was just in my neck and shoulders.. now it's everywhere.
I think if they saw the Crohn's in you, and I guess I'm assuming you mean they scoped you and biopsied you, then I definitely believe the pain you're feeling is related to Crohn's for sure. You definitely need to be biopsied to get a proper diagnosis. You have to tell your rheumy that you have IBD, if he knows what he's doing, he will know the relationship between IBD and joint-tendon problems and can provide you help. I know the Crohn's is responsible for my problems, my arthritis is inflammatory, and basically you can only have that if you have IBD. Is your sed rate or any inflammatory markers high? How long ago did you get diagnosed?
If you can, please respond through email, my name is Marla
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