Confused and fed up - can you help

creakybones

Good Morning
Hoping for some advice please. My medical history is long - in the main chrons disease and some gynae problems - life time of surgeries including ileostomy ( bag). I still have a diseased rectum and need quite radical surgery to remove as this would include a hysterectomy - big complicated op which I am putting off at the moment. Last December I fell and injured the left side of my body - didnt go doctors - ached for a few days then ok. In Feb this year I started to get severe body aches at night - lower back, hips, thumb. GP thought it may be linked to chrons - referred me to gastroenterologist. He confirmed you can get a type of inflammatory arthritis with chrons and felt this is what I was suffering from. I was quite upset at this diagnosis - having never had joint pain before - i never appreciated how debilitating it is. As the weeks passed I found the pain in my left arm was much worse than the rest of my body aches. GP felt I may have injured my arm in the fall and referred me for physio - she suspected tennis elbow. The physio however disagreed and felt its something to do with my bicep muscle! I am so confused for the following reasons:
I find it hard to accept I should suddenly get inflammatory arthritis when I have had chrons for 30 years and actually the chrons at the moment is fine - apart from the rectum.
All this came on after the fall - is it possible for arthritis to be triggered by a fall - my doctors dont seem that interested in the fall as it was months ago.
The difference in diagnosis on my left arm - one thing they both agree is it is not joint related which would indicate its not arthritis?
The pain is also really bad at the top of my spine - this has come on since I saw my consultant - this worries me too as no one has looked at this.
I find once you have chrons or any similar illness - this tends to be blamed for anything else that goes wrong with you. I am 52 and going through menopause ( also cause of joint pain?) I am on Ciprmail for depression ( one of the side effects - joint pain!). I dont know which way to turn - I have been off sick for 6 weeks and cant see me going back anytime soon - my pain is much much worse at night/morning - most evenings I am much better. I am taking Pred 20mg perday and the occasional ibuprofen. My consultant is considering azathioprine but I dont think this fall has been looked into properly - surely they should be excluding this before anything else - but you know what some consultants are like!
Sorry for the long post - hoping you can help me disentangle this mess as its really dragging me down. Thank you.

fowls48

Hi Creakybones


I do believe things can be triggered by falls and other types of accident .I fell down the stairs in january bashed my knees badly i did not hurt my hands .But a few weeks later i had my very first flare up every single finger and knuckle on both hads , knees , are creaking and painfull as well as both feet toes and sides of feet are both sore .Now 2 weeks ago i have been diagnosed with RA .Keep reminding the docs of all other problems as they seem to have ignored , as i will be doing the same , That bicep problem you have, i have experianced the same , the muscles felt warm so i thought that Arthur had made his ugly presence known ?

keep pushing it as i will be .Sorry i could not be of any further help.


Take care
karen xx

helpline_team

Dear Creakybones,

Sorry to hear about all this pain. If your chrohn's consultant suspects inflammatory arthritis you can ask them to put a letter to your GP recommending a rheumatology referral. Rheumatology would then be able to book thorough bloods and scans. The GP can organise x-ray of the worst affected joint to rule out osteoarthritis too perhaps?

Would you like a chat? You can ring us for some support and we'd be happy to give you a chance to talk things over.

I hope that's helpful

Guy

creakybones

Thank you for your replies - very helpful.
Guy -I may well give a ring at some point - although my medical history is long and probably very boring! I think thats why I am so confused and upset to now have this 'new' problem. I think that is quite typical of anyone with a chronic illness - you cope with 'your' illness but for me anyway I dont cope very well with anything else. Plus I am shocked as to how painful joint pain is having never suffered before. I may well ask for a rheumatology referral - this disease features quite strongly in my family on both sides. My grand father actually died at 54 - that was 40 years ago tho - he had terrible RA and as a carpenter used to over inject morphine just to enable him to work - think it was the drugs that killed him not the illness. Still worrying though. I may get to speak to my chrons consultant today - I may ask for a referral - at least then I know its been covered.
Thanks again for the replies - glad I found this website.
Best wishes