Worried I may have an auto-imune disorder after joint pain playing basketball
M31 6'2" 185lbs
I joined a basketball league with my co-workers. This is the first time I've ever played basketball outside of maybe gym class as a kid and I haven't done really any high impact sports since I played volleyball in highschool. So like 13 years. Skiing is about the most high impact I get and, naturally, I can only do that part of the year. Otherwise, my job involves being on my feet 8 hours a day, I commute by bike 30 minutes each way and I go to the gym (not as often anymore, but I was consistent last year). I confirmed have mild arthritis in my ankles which I suspected was from skiing with ill fitting boots for many years. I've never experienced joint discomfort in my knees and rarely experience joint discomfort in my ankles (only a few times after long shifts). I wear supportive shoes with good insoles.
In my first basketball game, I experienced notable joint discomfort in both knees and ankles pretty much as soon as the first time I had to run on the court, and I pretty much could only jog at most aside from short bursts, and even then the jogging felt bad. This is a seemingly recent phenomenon as I don't recall this ever happening before. I tried jogging as soon as I woke up to eliminate the possibility that this could be repetitive movement fatigue from my shift that day, and once again, the discomfort started as soon as I started running and ended as soon as I stopped running. No stiffness apon waking up.
I just assumed that my 30's were hitting me and my arthritis was spreading. I messsged my doctor about it today, but before doing that I was bouncing off Claude just to see what comes up. In my questioning, it mentioned something about an auto-imune issue being a possible cause as it can attack the joints and potentially make arthritis worse. This set off alarm bells, as my mom has an auto-imune disorder that causes an issue with her thyroid (i think it's hypothyroidism, but not sure) and she also has vitiligo. My sister also mentioned that she'd had miscarriages due to her auto-imune issues ans had to take medicine for it before she was able to have my sister and I. Not only do I have an immediate family member with auto-imune issues, I suddenly remembered that when I get sick or have bad allergies, my joints often hurt, which I just chalked up to an effect of the sickness.
I know that arthritis can occur naturally even in young people, but it also feels unlikely that I would develop it considering the fact that I am young, active, lean, don't have a history of high impact exercise, suddenly have bilateral knee and ankle pain only at the point of running and have no joint stiffness either when I wake up or after activity.
Right before writing this I I wrote a message to my doctor requesting a referal to a rheumatologist and blood work to test for autimune disorders. But in the meantime I wanted to get some opinions.