Joint Pain

[cindyh113]

I am having some joint pain. I finished treatmet the end of March. I was having some stiffness and had some neck pain before. But New Years Eve I was on my feet a lot and it started out hurting up the back of my ankle then within the week both joints on either side of my ankle were swollen. Red dots and blue on the worse side. Its just now going down. And my elbow has been hurting for a month. Bottom line has anyone else had anything similar?

[newleaf09]

There have been lots of complaints on the forum lately from people who finished TX and now have new joint pain that they don't think they should have.  Jury is out as to what's going on.  Could be transient pain related to prior interferon treatment, could be rheumatoid arthritis caused by IFN, could be coincidental natural aging, could be lots of things.  Patient is stuck figuring it out on their own, unfortunately.  A starting point might be visiting an orthopedist and having the joints x-rayed to see if there is anything really going on there.

One warning: steroids and anti-rheumatoid arthritis medications are designed to shut down or dampen your immune system, so in my opinion, are not a good treatment for a patient who recently finished interferon therapy to amp up the immune system to kill an invading virus.  I don't have any idea how long anti-immune meds should be avoided, just plan to avoid them myself, if possible (I finished TX June 1, 09).