Originally Posted by madscientist
Originally Posted by cudaman1969
Originally Posted by madscientist
Originally Posted by parksr5
While reading the "How Many More Years Of Racing You Got In Ya?" thread, it made me think, at what age did some of you start hurting or noticing your bodies starting to tell you that you were aging or that you've worked too hard for too long?

I'm about half the age as some of you on here but, I'm starting to feel stuff already and it concerns me a little. My index finger has been hurting me the last 6 or so months and I finally had a Dr. look at it, arthritis. What, I'm in my 30's, [censored]?

I worked manual labor jobs for about 8 or so years of my working life but, I've had a desk job for the past 16-17. I tinker with stuff all the time though, I'm re-doing my kitchen right now. I really think the arthritis in my finger is related to all the siding I cut by hand for my garage a few years ago.

There are a lot of guys that don't talk about stuff like this, so: I'm surprised when people do talk about it how many have issues.

So, when did your body start to let you ......?



At your age (I’m assuming you were told you have osteoarthritis in the finger) I would do everything possible to rule out Rhumatoid arthritis. That stupid blood test they use (that was developed between the world wars) is wrong at least 50% of the time. You can be easily blood negative RA and still have it. And the longer it’s missed, the more damage it does. If you are fatigued a lot, if you get out of bed and have stiffness at all, if you get unexplained rashes, weird body temperature changes...stuff like that you can almost bet you have RA.

I know this because in 1982 I went into the Army and I had some fatigue and joint pain issues. And they just missed it. The funny thing is you can go for months or even years and you won’t have any symptoms and then out of nowhere you just have a bunch of bad days and you’re like [censored]?? Then one day, you just feel like crap and it doesn’t go away. I wasn’t actually diagnosed with RA until 2006. It never occurred to me until several years after the diagnosis that I had symptoms in the Army, so my doctor suggested I get a copy of all my medical records from them. Sure enough, when I looked at the, I said yep, sure did hit every indicator that I had RA, but like everyone else, they relied solely on that blood test and didn’t bother to stop and clinically diagnose it. All it takes is a short time on prednisone. If you get better you know it’s RA. If you don’t it’s something else. There are other ways to clinically diagnose it, but that’s a simple one.

By 2006 I couldn’t walk, drive or much anything else. Damn sure couldn’t hardly work. A 3 day week was good for me. And in that time I was doing about 40% of what I would regularly do. I had a buddy come pick me up and take me to the ER. That was the ONLY time I’ve ever been blood positive for RA.

If you do have it, you are much better off knowing it now and getting after it. It won’t go away and it won’t get better. And pray like hell you don’t have it.

Just my thoughts.

I’m thinking you hit the nail on the head for me, all those symptoms I have for maybe 6-8 years now. I’ve burned up the internet looking for a cause always thinking vascular problems but with tests they all cleared.(did have a stent put in the lower aorta 4 years ago). Some days I feel like a tuck run over me, my legs are the worst can’t pick my feet up and stumble over lent and I’ve fell 3-4 times this year alone. First of the week I’ll call to get checked with my primary doc. Thanks in a way, btw I’m 72 and still working but getting slower
Where did you get the prednisone?
Update, found some in my cabinet stash (2004 but looks good)



Be careful with prednisone. Since you already have some you probably already know the side affects of it but for anyone else reading this I’ll outline a few. Number ONE for me is it made me a cranky [censored]. Everything set me off. Another one was eating. It made me eat anything that I could find. And with that comes weight gain. The pounds went on so fast I couldn’t believe it. I was 210 when I started on it and 242 six weeks later. That’s how long I was on it. Then my doctor said ok, let’s start some other treatments and by the way, that weight HAS to come off and I want you to get to 200. I can tell you that that was 2006 and I’m still not to 200 yet. I hover at 208-215. Going from 242 back down to 220 was a real PITA. It took 16 months to lose that weight. Went on quick, came off slow. And I worked at it.

There are a couple of other side effects with any steroid like that that I can’t think of, but those were the two worst for me. So I’d see your doctor before you went back on it. And don’t let any doctor tell you that you are blood negative for RA so you don’t have it. That test is pretty much junk.

One last thing. If you do have RA and you start getting treated for it you’ll very quickly learn how many people actually have every RA symptom but don’t know they have it. I have correctly diagnosed 5 different people I know with RA just by looking at them and hearing their symptoms. Also, many doctors who believe the blood test when it comes up negative will call what is really RA fibromyalgia. And it’s not. In my opinion, very few people have fibromyalgia. There is a form of RA (I forget what it’s called because there are many types of RA including ankylosing spondylitis, psoriasis and many others) where the immune system attacks the thin lining between the muscle and the bone. And that gets called fibromyalgia when it’s not. People think the pain is in the muscle but it’s in that thin lining.

To wrap up this long post, it’s borderline criminal how far behind medicine is on RA and it’s related diseases. It’s almost borderline criminal how often it’s misdiagnosed. So if you have joints that hum (I can tell you there are times when my joints hurt so bad it feels like my joints are tuning forks that vibrate), hot joints, swollen joints or when you hurt everywhere but you know it’s not muscle pain because you know what that feels like it’s almost always some form of RA. The sooner it gets treated the less joint damage you’ll have, plus you get ahead of all the ancillary stuff you get with RA like heart disease, rapid eye sight changes (I literally got up one day, went to work and couldn’t read my micrometers and it was over night...I had to run to the Dollar Store and buy a pair of readers and that pissed me off because I hadn’t been diagnosed yet and had no idea why that happened) and organ damage.

RA is a horrible disease and I’m pretty passionate about getting the word out there any chance I get because of how long I went undiagnosed and misdiagnosed.

I’m hearing you, making appointment Monday. My older sister has the psoriasis bad now for 8-10 years she can hardly walk at times. I have that tingly thing you described too, like something moving just under the skin at the upper leg-gorin spot in left leg and pain in same spot on the right side (can’t cross my leg). I got the pills for poison ivy iirr. I feel a little better this morning but had heartburn and couldn’t sleep to good but I can handle that if I get back to moving around better, btw I did read up on side affects, always do on all drugs prescribed to me.

Last edited by cudaman1969; 01/01/22 12:07 PM.