For starters, I am a 25 yo male, in good health, with no family history of any arthritic diseases. About 2 months ago, I began to notice joint pain in my fingers on both hands (almost exclusively the DIP joints, or joints closest to the fingernails). The pain seems to be more radiating, does not cause impaired movement or stiffness. There has been no swelling, redness, warmth, etc. around the joints. The pain is sort of dull. It varies from finger to finger. The pain is bilateral, but not always symmetrical. I've also noticed that I have been more tired than usually recently, though that is hard to quantify.The pain seems to have settled some over the past few weeks. I’ve narrowed it down to 2 things that changed in my life/diet prior to this pain. 1.) I was diagnosed with IC and put on a prescription of Elmiron (about a month before the pain began). 2.) I had been taking zinc supplements (for no specific reason) in addition to a multivitamin. NOT including dietary zinc from food, I was getting 65 mg of zinc/day. (began 1 month before finger/joint pain set in.) My research showed that much zinc per day was WAYYYY too much and could create a copper deficiency. One symptom of copper deficiency is joint pain.
1.) Could my joint pain be caused by a copper deficiency? 2.) If not a copper deficiency, could it be the Elmiron? 3.) Could the IC and DIP pain be related (ie something like Fibromyalgia)? 4.) I don't have any of the risk factors for degenerative arthritis like RA or OA, nor do I have swelling or many of the symptoms associated with that. Plus RA hardly ever involves the DIP joints in the hands, and that is the main (95%) of the pain I feel, in the DIP joints. Would this make it less likely I have OA or RA? 5.) If the joint pain is being caused by a copper deficiency due to too much zinc, what do I do to correct this, aside from tossing the zinc supplements, which I already did. Will correcting my copper levels correct the finger pain? Thanks!