need help with my symptoms/diagnosis

[csmitty435]

Hello everyone!   I am 24 years old and life has been very tough for me recently.  For my whole life ive suffered from very back sacrum pain. Its off and on and that was all I had to deal with.   Now it seems that my whole body is feeling symptoms.
      At first I thought it was a heart issue.  I had bad chest pain, weird heart palpitations and just felt so fatigued.  I wore a monitor, did an EKG, ECHO, Stress test and all returned normal.  A few days after the test my knees started to hurt and swell up badly.  They were filled with fluid. I thought this might be something like heart failure, but the Doc said he thought it was rheumatoid arthritis or something similar.
      I started to feel worse and worse, and had really bad headaches. My neck is very stiff and hurts and I have sharp pain in both shoulder blades when inhaling.  I also was losing a lot of weight and still eating the same. Over the last 6 or so months ive gone from 185 Lbs to about 156. Lost about 30 pounds.   The doctor said those symptoms were very concerning and recommended a brain MRI to rule out the worst. The came back normal.
I went the the rheumatologist and took some blood test. I took my CRP and Sed rate, both were pretty high.  I also took the test to look for the rheumatoid factor, which came back negative.  I was positive for the HLA-b27 though which can indicate ankylosing spondylitis.  I took the CRP and SED rate tests again a few weeks later and they were back down to normal levels.  
The rheumatologist was concerned about weight loss and headaches and said thats not a common symptom in arthritis.  She recommended a CT scan of my abdomen to make sure nothing in there was causing my weight loss.   It showed inflammation and thickening in the lower part of my large intestine.    They said this finding was very non specific.  
I am truly lost as to finding a solution.  There was a problem with my insurance so I am waiting till I am covered again to see the Rheumatologist again.  Do any of these symptoms sound familiar to anyone?  Can weight loss, Headaches, and heart pain, palpitations be from AS or another arthritis like disease?I am at a point where my knees are so swollen it hurts to get out of bed and all day my heart is feeling so off and my head hurts.  It feels like it is full or something and is very strange.  THis has so negatively effected my life I really need some help. Does this seem like arthritis? Or something else?

Any suggestions, answers, feedback or any info at all would be so greatly appreciated.  I dont know how many people will actually read all that and answer but I truly appreciate anyone taking the time!

Thanks a lot.

[csmitty435]

thanks for your reply!! this is something I have considered and have been told but havent put in the effort needed.  I tried for about a week going GF but i know it is much longer you have to do it.  What symptoms were similar that you had?? what worries me is my heart is involved and Im not sure if gluten would effect that. also that my knees are filled with fluid.  Let me know what similar symptoms you had!! thanks a lot :)

[TeachJs]

I have had some very similar symptoms! Basically I went to the rheumatologist several times and took several blood tests and just like you the results were different after the second time. Al of my joints were swollen to the point where I could barely walk. I had of course lots of headaches and fatigue. I just so happened to have my annual with my gynecologist so I told her what was going on with me. She is very inclined to the naturalist point of view and suggested that I do an elimination diet. She suggested first eliminating gluten (bread pasta etc) because I have spokem to her and my physician about getting sick to my stomach sometimes when I ate large amounts of bread such as a pizza. So anyway I eliminated gluten altogether and I am now symptom free! Except of course when I accidentally eat it which makes me start to feel foggy brained and it makes my stomach and joints hurt. I now notice the difference immediately since I now know what it feels like to feel symptom free. I am not suggesting you eliminate gluten, but you probably could start paying attention to how you feel after eating certain foods. Maybe keep a food diary.