"Pain Guarding" as a Symptom
I'm sometimes at a loss to describe my symptoms to my rheumatologist, and I think one of them might be "pain guarding".
I wonder if others of you have a similar issue and how you talk with your rheumatologist about it.
My RA joint swelling is finally pretty well controlled with biologics (Orencia) and Hydroxychloroquine, but my fatigue and muscle pain are a real distraction.
When things are bad, I climb stairs very slowly, walk hunched over, take forever to bend down and back up, and do whatever I can to avoid unexpected jerks: like very carefully opening sauce packets for fear of pain if the packet tears unexpectedly. I can't really place the pain during these bad days as it's kinda all over.
I tried talking with my awesome rheumatologist about it, but she tried testing me for MS instead. I guess I shouldn't have used the word "stagger" when talking about my mornings.
AI thought that these might be "pain guarding" symptoms, but I haven't heard that term used before.
Does anyone else experience symptoms like these? What do you do about them?
Thanks.