Stiff or pain?

[Dozza]

My rheumy keeps asking me how long I am stiff for when I get up but I don't get stiff but do have pain - are they the same thing?

[Nettac]

I experience both stiffness and pain. Stiffness is when I can't get out of bed, or get up from a chair. Often feel less stiff once moving. I think you'd know if you were stiff. It's very unpleasant.

Pain for me is different. I can have pain with or with feeling stiff. If that makes sense.

[Gnarli]

Stiff is when nothing seems to work when I get up and do the "egg-bound penguin" walk to the loo in the morning. The pain comes when I've been trotting around doing the week's shopping or taking the hoover for a brisk clean-up. Then it's the fatigue and an episode of granny napping. Ho hum

Jan

[ann_martin37]

They are different but I usually get both together. Do you find it difficult to move in the morning? Shuffle when you walk, 2 feet to a step going downstairs etc. They ask you because stiffness that lasts more than an hour in the mornings is a symptom of RA and should improve with treatment.

[helixhelix]

When I was first diagnosed I never had morning stiffness (basically I was stiff all the time!) and then the drugs worked so it was all in the past.

However, strangely a couple of years ago I started to get morning stiffness - which is a quite painful type of stiffness as it's not just that I can't move easily but that it hurts at the same time. I am generally in remission, and it usually only lasts about an hour or so. But odd that it started nearly 5 years into the disease.

[TytoAlba in reply to helixhelix]

Are you female and post-menopause? If that's the case, what you're experiencing is perfectly normal.

[helixhelix in reply to TytoAlba]

Not sure who your reply was addressed to, and yes I agree the menopause can herald all sorts of symptoms.

However that's not the issue in my case for sure. And anyway even if it were I doubt I'd describe it as normal. Too much that applies only to women is put down to "normal" things rather than being properly looked at and alleviated.

I've seen so many women with stiff joints and pain have this put down to the menopause and ignored, only to find when they have damaged joints that it was actually inflammatory arthritis.

[keeta in reply to helixhelix]

Totally agree.x

[keeta in reply to helixhelix]

I get pain and stiffness together and walk on the outsides of my feet as i can.t put my feet flat the stuffness and pain can last till misday then ease off .but if i sit for long enough it comes back .and by night time stiff and aching again .

[Dozza in reply to keeta]

That's what it's like for me too!

[8080 in reply to helixhelix]

Right. It is odd that it started 5 years in ? I'm discovering that this is basically an odd but terrible disease. My GP was so puzzled that I didn't have morning stiffness ( but I did have lots of pain ). But I have experienced that stiffness in my car, and in a restaurant, where I just tried to remain calm and eventually my "parts" started moving. Have you heard of that, or am I just odd too ?

[Dozza in reply to 8080]

No I'm the same. Thank you

[Mandalou]

Hi Dozza,

Weirdly since I've been on Biologics when I flare and when I say flare I mean pain, I get zero swelling and no extra stiffness but a lot of pain so to cut a long story short if I went to the GP or Rheumatologist saying I was in excruciating agony that wasn't relieved by over the counter painkillers even moving on up to prescription painkillers , they would have no proof apart from my verbal assertion as my 8 weekly blood tests Indicate I'm in drug induced remission.

I come down the stairs sideways and I never know what's going to work when I stand up after sitting for any period of time.

My drugs ( Etanercept and Hydroxy ) seem to stop the swelling and high records of ESR and CRP but don't stop the every day pain.

Essentially I am young but with a strangely aged body. I hurt all over and daily but my bloods say I don't.

I really want to answer your question but I'm not sure there is a plain straight forward response!

All the best

Mx

[keeta in reply to Mandalou]

My bloods don.t show how bad i.m feelin.either.even though my hands are like balloons.

Writing this at the moment with a swollen fully closed hand with one bent finger can.t lift my arms for the pain .but bloods won.t show how bad it is .

[8080 in reply to Mandalou]

I guess that is exactly what I'm talking about, Mandalou!