Are you taking a lot of medication for your arthritis, Pfrog?
I have some experience with arthritis, and when I started with medication, everything went from bad to worse. When I started examining what I ate, and observed pain reactions to certain foods, and started watching my diet, things got much better.
I feel for you, it's such a debilitating disease! But hearing that it was only discovered by accident, and then got progressively worse makes me suspicious.