Renee,
THANKS! For all the information. I am going to get blood tests today to rule out some things- as the doctor put it.

You have to be the sweetest person to provide me with such great information. I NEVER had a pain before I had parvovirus I recd from my 2 year old (at the time). I was in gymnastics for 9 years, taught swim lessons, on the volleyball team in jr. high, on the track team in high school, Ive always been active, then overnight I got this horrible pain in all my joints! The only way to describe it... is I felt like a decrepid (sp) old woman. I was crawling becuase I could not walk, going to the emergency room because my legs and ankles and feet hurt so bad.

It will be a good day when I can report back to you what type of arthritis I have.

You have to be a super sweet person to have spent the time to give me that info. Thanks again.

Have you heard of the anti inflam- Arthrotec? Or Bextra?

Lots and lots of thanks!

I am glad to hear that your doctor is going to "start ruling things out." Is this doctor a rheumetologist? Until you have enough joint damage, many conditions can only be diagnosed based on their clinical symptoms. I had an orthopedic specialist that looked at my finger waaaaaaaaaaay back whn only one finger was involved. He insisted that I had severe tenosynovitis, not PA. I even let him convince me that he could fix my problem with surgery instead of considering DMARDs. Needless to say, after spening a lot of pain , money and rehab on just this one finger (which ended up a total mess)...my first rheumy said. "I could have told you that surgery wasn't going to work.... tenosynevitis is part of PA...you can't cure PA is surgery." So why didn't he step in and say something. Needless to say...I found a new rheumy.

I have not heard of the anti inflam- Arthrotec or Bextra? I know there are a lot of new drugs out there. I have heard the connection between Fifth Disease and autoimmune diseases. Some also say that pregancy can trigger it (for women...). I truly hope that your doctor can help you get a handle on the pain. Good luck and keep us posted.

By the way...I do agree with Albie.... perhaps the reason a condition starts out as one thing and then changes to sound like something else is because it isn't uncommon to end up with more than one autoimmune disease....