One odd thing – to me – about my arthritis is that it hurts mainly when I’m not using it. Typing away on the keyboard, it feels fine until I stop. The doc says that helps tell which kind it is.
A simple blood test can tell if it’s gout. Gout often hits the extremities. A sore big toe is a classic gout symptom but it can happen others places like fingers. I even had it in my ankle once.
The good news is that gout can often be controlled by diet changes. The bad news is that one of them is cutting down, or even cutting out, alcohol and things like shellfish. Also avoid getting dehydrated.
There are also effective medicines, but I went with diet changes to mostly control my gout.
Most definitely this. I don’t feel it at all while I’m at work. Once I get home I’m lucky I can grip something without dropping it. I usually have to wait a couple of hours before I take out the dogs because my hands will otherwise be too clumsy to hold their leashes 
I never wanted to be one of those people with a small pharmacy in their cabinet and a list of drugs to remember what to take and when, and certainly not now, in my fifties, but that’s what it’s come to over the last year or so. An old knee injury acting up, and then some problems in my wrists and a referral to a rheumatologist and I am that person taking prescription strength naproxen (aleve) daily just to not feel crappy. And as the joints in my hands swell - that first knuckle most noticeably, but also others in my fingers, I submit to the rounds of blood testing and ultrasounds and xrays and accept that I likely have rheumatoid arthritis and if I don’t get a handle on it now, I may end up so much worse off in the future.
See your doctor. If your symptoms are not anything to be worried about, then that is good to know, but if they are a start of something more serious, then best to be on top of it now.
I have RA and it started in my late 30s. I had gone to a podiatrist because my feet were hurting. He recognized the pain for what it was and sent me to a rheumatologist. Following the program set out for me by the rheumatologist, I was able to continue my life pretty much unimpeded until I hit my mid-50s. I’ve had one knee replaced and soon will need to have the other done. Steroid injections in my shoulder have kept that workable. Luckily I’ve never had issues with my hands.
If it’s RA, add tumeric to your diet, get lots of rest, try to limit your stress, and apply heat when your joints start to hurt. But also, do go see a doctor. If it’s RA, the sooner you get treatment, the more efficacious it will be and the less joint damage you’ll incur early on.
Ask if that’s “per lifetime” or “per year” or some such. You’re right, steroid injections can cause issues especially if done too often, but it might be “no more than once a year”.
I have plantar fasciitis, and a steroid injection into the heel can work wonders - but the podiatrist says no more than 3 a year (I do NOT get them anywhere near that often). The rules might be different for something directly into a joint, of course.
My doctor didn’t give a time period, but I distinctly got the impression that it was lifetime. Doctors actually, plural, as two doctors have told me that now.
My current doctor switched my medication from salazopyrin to arava, and that seems to be doing me better.
I’m 48. I’ve had arthritis since I was a teen. 
Mainly in the neck and upper back areas.
I’ve only found one way to keep it at bay:** exercise**, including weight training.
If I stop exercising for more than a couple weeks, the arthritis pain comes back.
Resurrecting this thread:
I’m waiting to hear from the Rheumatologist. In the past few months everything seems to have accelerated, especially my feet (I’ve got twisty toes which are affecting my gait, which in turn, is affecting my wonky knee). My hands are stiff more often than not. I’m feeling everything more at work now. That distresses me more than anything else.
Anyway, I got my test results back and they’re baffling. Some results are off the charts while others are perfectly normal. I tried googling some of them, of course, and I can’t make head or tails of many of them (off-the-chart sed rate, for example, points to massive inflammation; OTOH the rheumatoid factor test was within normal limits BUT there were other tests in there also off the charts which, according to Google, can point to RA).
So, I don’t know. I just celebrated my 25th anniversary with my employer and now I feel like I’m 100 years old.
Oh FFS! They looked at that?
Sed rate can mean so many things that it’s pretty much worthless without knowing what your base value is. In my case, I get high sed rate due to having smaller-than-usual red cells. In Spain it’s dropped off the protocols (thank Asclepios), but before it did, any time I got a blood test the doctors would freak out thinking I had some sort of horrible deadly infection that was about to kill me. The last time it got included was during one of my jobs abroad and, since I was already in my 40s, the doctor thought I’d forgotten to mention my rheumatoid problems when she took my history :rolleyes:
My doctor’s online site has graphs showing the progression of certain tests. They give the “what’s considered normal” baseline in one color, they give your own baseline in another color, then the most current test is in yet another color. I’ve had a consistently high sed rate for the last 3-4 years. My PCP thought it was because of my allergies; ergo, I was told to keep taking my allergy med, yadda yadda. I have been all along, so…?
AFAIK I have no parasitic infections or anything like that. The only other thing is the arthritis. I guess we’ll see what happens when I see the rheumatologist.
Resurrecting this thread yet again:
I’ve been labeled “severely arthritic” by the rheumatologist. I was retested. It’s not RA, just OA. It’s everywhere except for my hips, apparently.
She wants to put me in Plaquenil. It’s supposedly the “most benign” drug out there. She instructed me to research it myself then contact her as to whether I want to try it.
Well, I’ve been researching it…the side effects are many daunting, especially the “may permanently alter eyesight over the long term”. It takes 4-6 months before it gives any measurable relief.
Has anybody ever been on it? Do the benefits outweigh the risks? I haven’t been able to find any firsthand anecdotes either online or off.
I don’t like the idea of being married to a medication unless something is life threatening. I resist taking naproxen or ibuprofen unless my creaking is severe enough that I’ll have issues at work. It’s getting to the point where the pain is beginning to outweigh my automatic “push through it, dammit” .
If you have OA, how do you manage it? Diet? Tumeric? Something else?
Once every morning now, I mix powdered Viartril-S with water and take an Arava pill. That seems to do me okay. (Brand names may be different in the West, they often are.)
IANAD, but I would be surprised if arthritis would suddenly, in the same week, flare up in several different joints all at once.
If something like that happens to me, I just wait for it to go away, and if it doesn’t, a consultation with your doctor then will be soon enough.
To anyone picking up on this later, with similar complaints:
Did you notice any other symptoms of something minor, a week or two before that? You might have contracted a virus that is running around your body looking for a place to hide from your immune system, which will soon overcome the bug and leave you feeling normal.
I just made an appointment to go to the doctor for a single joint in my finger that has flared up over the past few months and has now become intolerably painful for no apparent reason. I’m 40.
I was diagnosed with RA at age 38. There is no lower limit on age.
Go see a rheumatologist, now! The only reason that I am in as good condition as I am today is because I was diagnosed early and treated aggressively.
Somebody already suggested grippy pads to assist in opening jars. Those are very good but they still require your rusty fingers to grip hard enough to hurt later.
I use a mechanical open everything from pop bottles to peanut butter jars. It looks like this, by Swing-A-Way, $8.50 from Amazon.