Dopers have helped me solve a number of my life’s mysteries in Cafe Society so I thought I would give it a crack in MPSIMS too. Hmmm. Maybe GQ would be a good spot for this, too. Or IMHO.
Well, Mods, feel free to move this if you see fit. And please know that I’m not seeking medical advice - this is about an illness that took place more than 15 years ago. Anyway, What illness did I have?
Symptoms:
Woke up one morning with severe pain in every joint in my body. I couldn’t raise my legs high enough to step into the shower. My neck was particularly painful. I had a mild, not very bumpy rash on my chest. I’m not sure about fever; I lived alone and didn’t have a thermometer. I would guess I did.
Next day and every day after for three weeks, I had joint pain in a different area. One day it would be both hands, another both knees, another my neck and so forth.
The weird part, my twin sister had the same thing, starting a week before me. However, her husband and child and my boyfriend didn’t get it.
The time of year was late spring - May or early June.
My sister and I both went to doctors. The one I went to had no idea what it might be and didn’t want to discuss it at length, telling me he was sure the paint wasn’t that bad. He did find an ear infection though.
My sister went to a doctor who also had no idea what it was but suggesed Lupus or rheumatic fever.
It never came back and there have been no such suggestions of those illnesses since.
Fifth disease is my guess. Often causes agonizing joint pain in adults. It’s viral and generally lasts 1-3 weeks. The virus is pretty common and if the people you were around had already been exposed earlier, they wouldn’t have gotten it.
Hope you weren’t around any pregnant women if that’s what it was.
Could be reactive arthritis (formerly known as Reiter’s, but we don’t call it that anymore 'cause he was a Nazi). Did you have any issues with your eyes?
Hey, how about back pain? The last time I worked with little folks, I got a mild cold that was accompanied by the worst back pain I’ve ever had in my entire life. Fifth’s is usually a kid’s ailment, and I assume that I caught whatever it was from them…
Lupus? It’s never Lupus. I’d want to rule out Lyme’s disease, especially given the time of the year, or maybe Adult onset Still’s Disease.
[/Sinks comfortable back into his chair and bounce the ball against the glass wall]
About ten years ago I had something quite similar (though perhaps not quite as bad). My doctor was also puzzled about what it was and suggested that it might be a “viral arthritis”. It gradually subsided over a period of about two months, so I did not pursue it further. I did, however, continue to have some pain in my right hip which worsened over the years to the point (about 5 months ago) where I had the hip resurfaced (the diagnosis on the hip was osteoarthritis). I have no problems in any other joint.
There are many infections which affect the joints in the manner you describe and I suspect it is not impossible that your ear infection was part of it (IANAD).