Hi All Has anyone suffered with painful and tender joints . This is causing me problems at the moment , I have visited my Gp who has done some blood tests but is putting it down to MS . I am going to ring Ms nurse in morning but wanted to see if anyone has experience of this Thankyou
Low vitamin D can cause joint pain - and low vitamin D is pretty common in people with MS. Have you had your levels tested recently?
Karen x
Hi Smurf,
Yes, I’ve suffered from this both before and since diagnosis. My gut feeling is it has to be to do with the MS, but my neuro is dismissive, and thinks it’s unrelated.
I don’t understand how I can have such chronic pain, but it NOT be caused by the only thing we know I’m ill with.
Like most people, I was extensively tested for other things - including full rheumatology screening - twice - on the road to diagnosis, so I feel that if I did have something else that was causing joint pain, it would have come out as part of that.
On a routine blood test for something else, I sneakily asked to have my vitamin D tested as well, as I suspected the same as Karen. But my levels came back fine, so it’s not that - at least in my case.
Personally, I think it’s something to do with muscle weakness and spasticity. I think that if muscles cannot do their normal share of the work, the strain gets taken up by joints and tendons, which were not designed for this, and in due course begin to hurt.
It’s a permanent feature for me now, but nobody seems bothered. My GP at least prescribes painkillers for it, but my consultant shows no interest in getting to the bottom of it. He treats it as about as relevant as if I said I had a cold or an ingrown toenail. i.e: “What’s it to do with me?”
When I’ve pressed my point that I do believe it’s related to the MS, he has simply shrugged, and said: “Well, you know your own body I suppose”, but not offered any more comment than that. 
Tina
I have been having this problem in my feet ankles and legs for the past eight or so months and like Anitra have had the same issues with my Neurologist and have also had a full Rheumatology screening, The pain is at times unbearable and makes getting around difficult and im at the end of my tether with Neuro
Hope the MS nurse can offer you some help.
Big Huggs
Kim
Personally I would ask for a referral to Orthopaedics. They know joints.
Anitra - please believe me when I say a lot of other conditions and pains can and will hit us and they will have nothing to do with MS. Don’t make the mistake of assuming everything is MS…you could have something else that is fixable.
Liz
Liz,
Well, I could have, but I don’t think there’s anything left to test for, which is why I’ve given up going on about it. I was tested for everything - rheumatology, vitamin deficiencies, even AIDS and syphilis, before finally being diagnosed with MS. I din’t have any of that stuff so I’m convinced it’s the MS. Also very funny how the timescale mirrors the onset of other symptoms. This isn’t something that happened separately, either before or afterwards. As MS has become more pronounced over time, the aches and pains have developed in parallel.
Tina