I have had sore wrists/hands for a few weeks and am starting to get very worried indeed

[ShowOfHands]

I have the strangest, achiest wrists/hands/fingers. Sometimes accompanied by a numbness or pins and needle type feeling. It can be on the inside of my wrist and shooting pains down into my thumb, sometimes the outside of my wrist with shooting pains into my little finger. It can't be something as simple as carpal tunnel as it's on the outside too. Also getting sore finger joints intermittently.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes wakes me in the night. The pain's not there all the time, comes and goes throughout the day and sometimes isn't there at all.

I've plucked up the courage to go to the doctors today and he has ordered blood tests but not for another week and then a week for the results. He said he is testing for rheumatoid arthritis or other joint infections. He said the lack of swelling though (had a good feel, I haven't felt swelling either) was a good sign and he didn't expect it was rheumatoid arthritis.

I'm getting in such knots about it. My great aunt has MS and that started with odd aches and pins and needles. Also have a family history of arthritis.

I keep imagining terrible things.

There ends self pitying post.

Saltire: MS is a bugger to diagnose. There needs to be episodes of relapses, lesions on an MRI et. Lots of other conditions can cause these symptoms so it's really hard to diagnose. my 'urgent' referal is in the system (somewhere).

I'd pop to the GP though, best to get it checked.

Well i got a Fibro diagnosis 2 years ago,a dn the symptoms are pretty similar. very scary though when the memeory goes, ro the eyes!

Showof Hands - I have a relative with now very severe MS that I have seen progress for 10 years. It does not sound like sny of her symptoms though tey can ary between people. However, I am not a doctor (well not that kind anyway).

Maybe some elastic bandages or some cheaper kind of wrist support would help. Certainly, the very heavy 99th percentile DD is consistent with out own experience with DS1. As I am a Dad I obviously did not suffer any kind of hormonal or mineral or vitamin issue but I did suffer the same symptoms as my wife.

Wrists/hands/fingers all affected. Pain, tingling pins and needles. Very familiar and came on after about a year when DS1 hit 99th percentile.

Thank you ABetaDad, you know in a really weird and obtuse way it's nice to hear of a man who has the same level of joint issues from child handling as his wife! Shows a tangible equality methinks.

My great aunt is 15 years into having MS, in a wheelchair and quite debilitated in many ways. I just keep remembering her complaining of pins and needles before diagnosis.

I hope it's simple. I really do. I feel like I've only just recently got back to where I was pre-dd physically and emotionally. I've lost all the weight, taken up running again seriously and feel more like 'me'. Just this weird wrist/hand thing now.

I have ME and suffer the pins and needles and numbness too. There are many possibilities and your best next step is your GP to be frank.

GP did a full blood count, thyroid, iron, esr inflammation thingy, several other blood tests I couldn't decipher but I think one was U&Es and something else to do with liver/kidney function and a couple of others.

Anyway, tests back this morning. Everything normal. In fact, he said everything showed as 'good', no even slightly abnormal results. Even my iron is the best it has been in 3 years.

He suggested swimming to try and build up the joint and muscles in a safe way and come back in 4 weeks to see what's happening.

So, can I relax a little and stop assuming terrible things? I've had 15 minutes of relief and am back to 'what if it's something he hasn't tested for'?

I don't like not knowing.

SOH, like Saltire i have Fibromyalgia, but mine was sparked by Lupus, which started in my hands.

I had all the Rheumatoid Arthritis tests ,in fact had so many tests I cant remember them all, finally after 17 months i was diagnosed with Lupus.

It may be worth asking your Doctor about it.

?carpal tunnel syndrome
Any symptoms in your feet?

I do have something weird going on with my feet. What are you thinking? It's not carpal tunnel.

Shoshe, I will mention lupus when I go back but have none of the main symptoms. No rash, no inflammation, no headaches, normal iron, normal platelets, no fatigue, no fever etc. I have a good friend with lupus.

I didn't have all the symptoms to start with, the rash especially only came later, and is for me quite mild, the rest can be quite severe at times tho.

Sounds like carpal tunnel syndrome to me. I had it really badly in my hands with DS1 - exremely painful. The minute I stopped bf it went away. However my SIL who is the world's greatest hypochonriac assured me that I would need operations on both hands - like sh'd had. I didn't!

It's not carpal tunnel. I had that when pg. It's in the wrong place.

You can get "glove and stocking" numbness and tingling i.e. in hands and feet,
caused by different things such as
under and over active thyroid
diabetes
b12 deficiency
some medicines
other

ame as saltire - fibromyalgia - which i swear was brought on by chronic sleep deprivation and co-sleeping/breastfeeding ds2

show of hands
i swear it soubnds like my fibromalgia
how are your shins

it is between your joints and bones i bet - not the actualy joints

It's not my joints I don't think. It feels like I need to pop/click my joints to release something. And my shins feel sore, odd shooty pains.

If it is fibromyalgia (am bfing and co-sleeping with a 2yr old), did stopping bfing help?

What's the prognosis with fibromyalgia? I only read that it's a symptom of something more serious.

I have to rush off to do the school run just now. I only stopped breastfeeding when I got pregnant and am still breast feeding

It vanished when I was pregnant but returned again when I got sleep deprived with ds3. It is manageable at the moment.
It is mainly my hands and arms right now, but not too bad.

If you have time, search for my threads from around sept 2007 to feb 2008

will be back later

mine started as i thought i had shin splints from starting running

do you feel like you have run a marathon in your thighs

do you use/lean on your elbows alot? if you're breastfeeding, do you lean on your elbows? do you lean on them at work or when using the computer?

if so, it can compress the ulnar nerve which can cause the symptoms you mention.