It is not at ALL unusual to test negative for RA. It's called being "sero-negative". Blood work never tells the whole story; a good rheumatologist will look at a broad range of evidence - blood work, x-rays, possibly an MRI, and most importantly, laying hands and eyes on your sore joints. Whether you're sero-neg or positive, the treatment should be the same.
IMO I don't believe you're being properly diagnosed or treated. Insist on a referral to a rheumatologist; if you're already seeing one, find a better one.
Keep a pain/swelling diary while you're waiting for your appointment. This can be as simple as drawing a stick figure of yourself and labeling joints on a pain scale from 1-10. You may notice a pattern of when your pain is worse throughout the course of a day, a week, a month, etc. This info can be extremely useful for the rheumie to look at when you're evaluated.
Good luck! [[hug]]
I meant to add that pain, swelling, redness and heat are hallmarks of RA, but they don't necessarily all occur at the same time. :)
I've had RA since age 5 and am now 51. As you can imagine I've lost count of the x-rays I've had. A rheumie will probably order x-rays, at the very least to have a baseline to compare to another set 6 months to a year from now. Today's xrays are so low dose I honestly don't think a few are going to hurt you.