colitis and RA / joint pain

You can have a high RF and not get RA. You can also have low or no RF and get RA (that's called sero negative RA). There are literally 100's of different types of arthritis but the most common for UC'ers is Peripheral arthritis. I have this. The joint pain mirrors the inflammation in your gut. Once a flare settles down, the joint pain lessens. It's non-damaging but migratory.

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SHERRY
Moderator-Allergies/Asthma, Alzheimer's, IBS, Co-moderator-UC
Diagnosed Left sided UC '92 - meds: Colazal, Remicade (6mp discontinued due to neuropathy)*Unable to tolerate ALL mesalamines*, IBS, Diverticuliar Disease, Fibro, Sacroiilitis, Raynauds, OA, PA, Rosacea, Psoriasis, Dry Eye and allergies controlled by Zyrtec and Singular

You should see a rheumatologist to get to the bottom of this. Like Red said, the most likely explanation for your joint pain is enteritis arthritis, which is not damaging to joints. For many years, my main IBD complaint was joint pain (hands and wrists), not bowel issues. I take sulfazine now, which treats both the joint pain and the bowel inflammation. This has worked well for me.

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50 yrs old, IBD diagnosis in spring '01. Proctitis, gastritis, ileitis.
Currently taking Pentasa (3g/day)generic Colazal (96 pills/day), Sulfazine (1.5 g/day), Prevacid, folic acid, vit. D (2K iu), flax seed oil (2 tsp/day), psyllium (1/2T daily), mesalamine enema as needed. Gluten free as of 5/30/11. Colonoscopy found no evidence of inflammation on 8/16/1

Another vote for trying sulfasalazine as your ASA as it can help with UC and joint pain.

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Diagnosed with ulcerative colitis spring 1999. Have been in remission for years with only a few minor blips. Last two scopes showed no inflammation at all.

Maintenance dose sulfasalazine. Probiotics, vitamin D, fiber supplement and fish oil caps. George's aloe vera juice and l-glutamine for gut healing. Currently using autoimmune Paleo diet.

No, they do not flare at the same time. I think because the are both Autoimmune related they consider the RA and UC to be associated. Another reason this is suspected is because my rheumatoid factor is zero negative. Three different doctors including my GI suggested this. Both my Rheumatologist and GI think I should try Humira, because it is used to treat both conditions. I am resisting going to biologics at this time, but it is an option for future consideration. There is literature on the web related to RA associated with UC.

Interesting thread...now that I think about it, I believe the severe pain in my hips, knees and ankles that I suffered for a month BEFORE my gut symptoms started flaring may have been the first sign of an impending flare.

Here is a link
http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Enteropathic-Arthropathies.htm

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40 yo female, first flare 6 months after quitting smoking in 2009
Severe pancolitis - flaring since late April 2013
Currently on 7.5 mg pred (tapering down from 40)
Trying cigarettes 1 am, 1 pm...it seems to be helping!
Have tried Asacol, Pentasa, Rowasa, slippery elm, boswellia, turmeric, probiotics by the dozens Currently have about 20 unopened bottles of supplement/herbals I have not tried

yeah my doc was saying that too...i had a little shoulder ache for 2 years so i had assumed that was when the RA began but he said the shoulder looked fine....he wondered whether i have a viral infection that is causing immuno respones in joints and bowel...

interesting...i cam across the following on web....not sure if it is saying that IBD is correlated with RA or is it just suggesting that high rheumotoid factor in the blood is prevalent in CD / IBD patients...maybe some members can make more sense of the technialities

The behaviour of some serological aspects of autoimmunity was studied in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by determining the incidence and levels of serum IgM, IgG and IgA rheumatoid factors (RF) and of circulating immune-complexes (IC) in 67 patients suffering from ulcerative colitis (UC) and 53 from Crohn's disease (CD). Sera from 40 young healthy subjects were included as controls. RF were detected by an enzyme linked immuno-assay (ELISA) and IC by the CIC-conglutinin and the CIC-C1q assays. ELISA detected a higher incidence of IgM RF in both UC and CD groups than the routine agglutination tests, although the mean levels were non significantly higher than in controls. Mean IgG RF levels were significantly above normal in UC and CD patients, the latter showing a greater incidence of elevated values and higher mean levels. IgA RF were significantly elevated only in CD patients; mean values for the UC group were within the normal range. The CIC-conglutinin test did not detect a significant incidence or high mean levels of IC and the CIC-C1q assay turned up a sizeable number of positive samples only in the CD group. Although still only preliminary, these overall findings suggest that RF activity is somehow present in patients with IBD. The greater prevalence of IC in CD patients, together with the patterns of IgG and IgA RF support the concept that this disease possibly involves autoimmune phenomena more than ulcerative colitis.