36 years old male - Sudden onset polyarthritis

roni_hl
roni_hl Member Posts: 1
in Living with arthritis

Hi everyone!

I was getting dull aching pain in the groin areas last year. Earlier this year I started to feel pain in both of my hips. This happened ~4 weeks after I've recovered from a throat / respiratory infection that resolved with antibiotics. I was also getting IBS like symptoms in my gut in the period preceding the onset of joint pain, but those symptoms also resolved when I cut down fast food and started taking probiotics. I ended up getting an X-ray and MRI that showed I had femoral-acetabular impingement (FAI) and OA in both hips.


I started having pain in both knees shortly after which the surgeon said was due to overcompensation and/or early patellofemoral OA.

Due to the pain I had to undergo 2 hip arthroscopy surgeries in March and April, 3 weeks apart. The surgeon said I will need to get the 2 hips replaced eventually and that the arthroscopy procedures should hopefully buy me time.

I was put on Mobic 15m for 2 months following the surgeries and I was doing relatively ok but I started to have pain in other areas like left-side lower back, SI joint areas, right ankle, pinky finger etc. The recovery was tough and I feel even now I haven't fully recovered (3 months post surgery).

After I stopped taking Mobic, I woke up on a winter morning with stiffness, pain and clicking in ALL of my joints (literally), most noticeably in my elbows, shoulders, spine, neck, upper and lower back, toes. I obviously panicked and called the ER. The nurse said those are symptoms of OA.

After that, I went to see the GP who said I have winter-induced arthritis and gave me Celebrex 100 mg twice a day. This seemed to help a lot. The stiffness, clicking and pain reduced significantly but did not go away fully. The GP asked me to get blood tests for RA. Results all came back negative and she said there is no sign of autoimmune disease.

I went to see a Rheumatologist last week and she ruled out RA and PsA (mum had PsA at age of 65, 7 years after getting psoriasis). The rheumatologist said I have OA in some joints and lots of biomechanical issues in my body like bursitis and muscle imbalances. She asked me to focus on Physical Therapy and continue taking Celebrex. She also asked me to do some further blood tests FBC, EUC, LFT, ESR, CRP, ANA and DsDNA and see her again in a month.

After consulting with a few other GPs, they suggested I get tested for the HLA-B27 gene which I understand can show potential links to ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

I am now 3 months post surgeries, been taking Celebrex for 2 weeks and I feel like the clicking and joint pain has reduced a lot. The pain seems to migrate from one area to the other. I also noticed I have a lot of tendon and bursa related issues which I'm not sure if they can be called "enthesis".

I'm only 36 years old, so having rapid onset OA in all my joints sounds very odd, especially for joints I don't usually overuse. I know OA can happen to young people but to have a full-blown flare up like this sounds extreme. I spoke to a number of GPs who suggested I get on a short-term course of prednisone to alleviate symptoms and 'diagnose' what's going on. Some say this could be genetic, other say it could be autoimmune of some sort.


Wondering if anyone has experienced something similar? Could this be reactive or infection-induced arthritis? Maybe exacerbated by surgery? Or maybe some sort of autoimmune condition that did not show up in blood tests? Keen to hear your thoughts!

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