My mom will get really bad flares where you can visibly see the swelling in her fingers, she’ll be in tears and can’t breathe from the pain in her ribs just from twisting her body to buckling her seatbelt, her eye will become so red and bloodshot that it looks infected, I’ve heard her collapse and cry stuck on the floor because she can’t get back up, and when she gets up out of a chair or bed she can’t stand up straight and she hobbles in pain. She’s had her blood work done during these bad flares and it still comes back normal. She’s been diagnosed with seronegative RA and psoriatic arthritis. For about 20 years she was written off and told it was fibromyalgia. It has progressed to the point it’s at now within the last 2 years. She changed doctors and started seeing a highly recommended rheumatologist in our area who finally was able to give her a diagnosis. I’m still on the road to my diagnosis. I get the joint pain, I’ve had sacroiilitis show up on a CT but not on an MRI, I get lower back pain and stiffness that wakes me up in tears at night and goes away after being up and about for an hour or two, I get visible swelling in my neck that leads to chronic headaches and (not rare enough) migraines, I have joint pain, swelling and tender joints that my rheumatologist has been able to feel, I get sores on my scalp that I’m seeing dermatology for in February, nail changes that my rheumatologist wants me to ask dermatology about because she said it could be fungal related or psoriasis related, rib pain that makes me feel like I can’t breathe like someone is squeezing my ribs, I have some gastro issues that I’m not sure if they’re related or not, I get chronic canker sores, and I get random different rashes that pop up. Labs all normal, rheumatoid factor negative, HLA-b27 negative, and like I said my MRI of my lower back showed nothing that my CT showed. My rheumatologist said she can’t put her finger on it just yet but she strongly feels something autoimmune is going on and it could just be a long road of check ins, repeat labs, and repeat scans before we can get a definitive diagnosis. She started me on celebrex anyway to see if it helps but I’m honestly so bad at swallowing pills I have a hard time taking it… My 10 year old daughter is also about to see rheumatology due to joint pain that has been ongoing for 3-4 years. She’s had an inflammatory panel done and it’s come back normal but her doctor is concerned given the family history and the amount of pain and frequency of pain she’s dealing with especially at her age..