Hi Tracy,
Well, to be honest, my first thought is fibromyalgia. I had some very
similiar symptoms soon after being diagnosed with ankylosing
spondylitis.
With me, I had a small amount of swelling and also pain in my forearms,
upper back and neck, achilles tendons and upper calf area. Maybe you
could check out a tender points chart at a fibro site, and see if you
have any of those.
My RD told me that it is not at all unusual to 'get' fibromyalgia not
long after an immune arthritis diagnosis.
Good luck getting pregnant!!!

Hi Tracy,,,,   Over they years of reading about people with PA,,,,,, Methx.
is one of the medicines to control PA and the P  in PA.   I can only hope
that your RD will let you start again and even go up a little on the amount
you take because restarting does not work so good.   I have RA and restarted
Methx. about 3 times and it never worked as well as it did the first time
and then not at all but that is RA and not PA.   I know people that take
Arava, Methx, and Enbrel and still struggle to keep control.   I hope that
you keep your RD filled in on how you feel and your changes.  I also want to
welcome you to ASA and hope to become a full time player in this newsgroup.
Harv

Ps  not all of our posts are about the hard facts of having arthritis,,,,
many times its about the people..

Tracy,
I am a fellow sufferer of PA - having come down with it in 1992.  Your
systems read similar to mine in the early years of having PA.  I have
been on MTX now for 10 years as well as cyclosporin (neoral).  MTX by
it self gave me little help but combined with Cyclosporin and a change
in life style I now have an almost normal life.

I found out that large doses of sugar would aggrevate the situation as
well as stress (I have just retired - wow).  I get my husband to
massage my feet (reflexology) - I don't know if it is in my mind but I
think it really does help - the morning after he has done it my feet
don't say  "don't put me on the ground".

You mentioned your  not having hot joints - my joints are no longer
swollen or hot but there is still weakness - i.e I can walk and be on
my legs for hours but I am not very good at going up or down stairs and
I guess this is because I don't exercise my legs the way I should -
can't get on a bike, hate swimming and no stairs to climb every day. If
you get back pain, try lying on your tummy and pushing up on your
elbows. To strethen legs lie on your back and lift legs one at a time
slowly, try putting weights on your ankles to make your legs work
harder. If you don't use it you will loose it.

I have always wondered what started my PA?  I had a lot of stress and
glandular fever just prior to my first PA symptons?  Please reply if
you feel your PA is the result of either of these.

tracy,
Just keep exercising, muscle weekness is part of the PA (my opinion).
Hopefully you can stay off drugs until you have a baby.  Try staying
off sugar (makes mine flare up), and stay stress free.

Hi Tracy,

First of all, best of luck in conceiving!  I hope you get a beautiful child
and you have a remission during pregnancy.

I, too, have PA and have had it in fairly major, though varying ways for 20
years now.  As you may know, PA can affect the tendons as well as the joints.
Tendon inflammation is not uncommon and it appears that is hitting you now,
unfortunately.

I've also been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but I have noticed the severity
of my fibro coincides with the current activity of my PA.  I truly seem to
have much more muscle weakness when my PA is flaring.  There may be some
inter-relationship going on that is not yet understood.  I recently had to
stop my Enbrel and mtx for a month due to a tenacious virus and everything in
my body ached as a result.

Also, PA can present very differently at different times.  Originally they
thought I had sero-negative RA because my first presentation of the PA was
absolutely typical of RA.  More recent flares and overall behavior of it all
for the past 13 years or so though has been much more typical of PA.  So it
won't always look the same.

Allof which is to say and support my thinking that this most likely is
arthritis related.  I hope your RD can help you out with it.  Are you taking
prednisone right now?  I know some women have used that to get them through
conceiving and carrying a child, though of course you have to be very careful
weaning off of it, even more so with PA than with RA.

Best of luck with it all!