@Pouchomarx posted:hey Jan, maybe you can try to help. So in the past i have had some joint pain in a few of my fingers and saw my ortho doc who is a hand specialist and he did injections that helped. I had Covid end of May and then i had my firsy shingles vaccine about 6 weeks ago. A few weeks after that shingles vaccine i started getting very sore in my finger joints, wrists, and sometimes in my ankles. I am scheduled to see a rheumatologist in about a month. I am already assuming it to be Rheumatoid arthritis. But I saw your comment on there being inflammatory arthritis associated with IBD. Does this type show up as positive with all the labs I am sure they will run for RA. ? its very mild and I have read about all the many RA drugs and biologics and the side effects dont seem fun. But if IBD related inflammatory arthritis and not RA , can it still cause deformaties? It sucks we cant take NSAIDS for this but right now i just do cannabis.
Agree with Jan. Would not assume you have RA particularly given the chronicity you’re describing (history of injections in the past). OA is by far the most common type of chronic joint pain. If inflammatory (not OA), there are many types of immune mediated arthritis, including those that don’t fit neatly into any classification schema. Also you can have seronegative RA, meaning negative RF and CCP, so there won’t be any one specific lab to diagnose or rule out disease. All of the inflammatory arthropathies are clinical diagnoses based on a combination of history, exam findings, labs and imaging. The worsening joint pain maybe be a post-viral/vaccination inflammatory syndrome (that is, if you have joint inflammation) which is typically self limited. Shingrix is very immunogenic and can cause all sorts of symptoms. Good luck at the rheumatologist.