[Khione]

Hello, I've been experiencing an odd pain in various parts of my body. It started roughly 5 months ago and was worst/most prominent in my lower back area. It had since left my lower back and is now most prominent in my arms/wrists and legs/knees.

The pain comes and goes. I'll describe today, which was my thumb. I woke up, both of my thumbs felt stiff and weak. I continued about my day, the stiffness and weakness stayed in both thumbs but my right thumb (I'm right handed and go to school so there is a lot of writing as well as the day just involving a lot of things to do), started getting painful. As the day progressed my right thumb became weaker (I couldn't open bottles and holding a pen was difficult) and looked more swollen. The veins inside my thumb even look swollen - they're very visable and worrying to look at. The pain itself isn't actually that bad, it's more of an immense discomfort.

The way I can describe it, is when you feel your joint needs to 'click' - when people click their fingers etc. I often have this feeling - it's a pain, but more discomfort and annoying.

This is the same pain I got in my back and it simply get's really uncomfortable.

Luckily, I took two ibruprofen about half an hour ago and the pain in my right thumb has subsided but the weakness/swelling is still there. It's not swollen a considerable amount anymore, the veins look normal.

Overall, the pain I get is very on and off. One morning I will wake up and my shoulder will be like this, or my knee or my elbow. It's usually on both sides when I wake up and then as I go throughout the day, it gets worse on one side over the other due to whatever I am doing - so today, I used my right thumb a lot during school.. other days my left shoulder will hurt more because it's the shoulder I carry my bag on etc. My legs usually stay the same during the day though some days it can differ. I still get pain in my back but it's less of a pain and more just weakness and that feeling when your back is simply strained from too much lifting etc (only I don't lift things much lol).

Like I said, it's very on and off, I can go a few days to a few weeks without anything and then all of a sundden, for a week, I'll have a pain every day in a different place.

Any ideas?

Hello Khione: No, I have no idea... really... my perspective is this is something you need to see a medical doctor about. This could be the beginning of some sort of chronic illness, or it could be merely a result of stress... both physical & / or emotional. The possibilities are so many that it's really impossible for any of us, here on PC, to give you any kind of useful insight into what's going on.

For that matter, even if this does eventually turn out to be some type of illness, it's possible even a medical doctor may not be able to define it at this early stage. Sometimes it takes time for these sorts of things to develop to a point where they can be accurately diagnosed. However, the sooner you begin to delve into it, the sooner you will hopefully know what's going on. At least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you've done what you can do to address it. And, also, there may be some treatments available that will help to minimize whatever discomfort you're experiencing at the present time. My best wishes to you...