fatigue,stiff and painfull joints

[scamp]

i am a 55 year old woman three months ago i developed stiff joints knees shoulders etc.i have been treated for liver problems but that has now been ruled out.
apart from joint pain i am tired all the time and have been unable to return to work.
i need help with everyday tasks,getting dressed washing etc.
docter has sent me to liver specialist and rumatologist no joy anybody with same problem please reply

[Tosser]

Hi Scamp!
It's no surprise to anyone here that has read any of my earlier posts that I too, suffer with joint pain as well as slow recovery from injuries to both feet and my work has also suffered greatly because of these persistant problems.

None of my doctors have contributed any of these symptoms to my Hepatitis-C or the condition of my liver. Therefore, I have had to alter my daily schedule to allow myself longer recovery time each day until I am completely finished with my tx. Then I will aggressively persue an exact cause and treatment for my pain.

The following link has some very good information about the diagnosis and treatment of pain.

http://decadeofpain.org/

I hope this helps you!
Tosser

[tikerberi]

Many years ago, I developed joint pains, stiffness, lethargy and sleepiness, and also a lot of swelling in my feet, ankles, hands....

I went to a doctor, who could not figure out what was wrong with me.  He did blood work, and other workups, and in the end decided that it must be my own fault for doing drugs or something that was giving me a bad reaction.  This lasted for a long time.

It wasn't until about six months or so later, when some of it had subsided, and I had gotten used to what was left in terms of some swelling and pains, that on a road trip from East Coast to West I became extremely nauseous, vomitted constantly, had major diarhhea, and my eyes turned yellow and then the rest of me.  By the time we got to California, all four of us had Hep A.  They put us into a liver ward, where a lot of other hippies like us were recuperating.

It was only then that I learned from the specialists, that all the symptoms I had six months befoer and since were early symptoms of the hep.  He figured that since my doc was a GP, it didn't occur to him to dig deeper than anything cursory, and that it would have been too soon for anything to show up in my bloodwork anyway.  

I've had a lot of the symptoms you describe over the past year or two.  It wasn't until I had liver failure in May, and then followed up with the GI :) that I discovered I have hep c.

I'm not trying to scare you or convince you of anything, just relating my own experience. I know that if I start with those symptoms, it usually ends up being my liver.