not yet diagnosed, but worried

I have not been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis yet, but I am worried that I might have it.  I have a lot of the symptoms, and I've got a sister who has scleroderma, so autoimmune disease is not exactly foreign to my family!  I'm 35 years old and my hands have been aching terribly for a couple of months now.  My feet have also been bothering me for the last month.  I'm terribly stiff in the morning (I actually wobble to the bathroom), but I can't say that it lasts for several hours.  Also, my pain is pretty much all day, not just in the morning, or even worse in the morning.  It's all the time.

The pain is totally in my joints and it is both sides (right and left).  However, I don't think that I have any swelling (at least that I can tell for sure).  I do have a couple of odd bumps by a few knuckles, but I can't say with absolute certainty that they haven't always been there.  Honestly, I never looked at my hands and feet that closely before!  I even think my toes look different (like little clubs), but again, maybe they always looked like that and I'm just crazy.  I do not have any of the systematic symptoms like fever or flu-like symptoms.

I actually had trouble with my hands hurting about a year and a half ago.  I thought it might be arthritis since it was definitely the bones that hurt, not muscles or tendons.  I even bought some Tylenol Arthritis, which didn't help AT ALL.  But it ended up resolving itself so I never did anything about it.  This time I started researching the symptoms though and I realized that I was also having other symptoms that I had not even connected with my hands/feet.

I have had trouble with my right hip for the last year or so - I can't stand or walk around for any length of time without it being terribly uncomfortable and painful, and it also causes pain in my lower back.  I feel like I just have to sit down or lean on something to get the pressure off my hip and back.  Last summer I went to an Active Release Technique Chiropractor because of the trouble I was having with my hip and back.  I went several times and she was totally perplexed because I wasn't making any improvement.  After about 2 months, she suggested I look into other treatment options because if ART was going to help me, I would have seen improvement within that time.  Nothing seems to make that better.

I also have trouble with my right shoulder - I can't lie on my right side anymore because it hurts when I do.  I had written it off as an "old swimming injury" (just overuse - nothing acute), even though it hadn't bothered me for some 10+ years.  It never occurred to me that it might be related to my hip or my hands or anything else.

Unfortunately I lost my job about 5 months ago and consequently have totally crappy insurance to try to save money.  Pretty much anything I have done right now is cash out of pocket, not to mention likely prohibiting me from ever being able to get better insurance.  I did go see a rheumatologist.  She didn't think I have RA because of the lack of swelling.  She recommended that I take 2 aleve in the a.m. and 2 in the p.m., and also try some water aerobics and possibly massage therapy or physical therapy.  She was willing to do bloodwork, but we decided to hold off on that since she wasn't too concerned that I had RA, the cost is really high and it would tatoo me with "pre-existing condition" should I ever get a diagnosis.  She did take x-rays of my pelvis and back since it had bothered me for so much longer, just to be sure there was nothing wrong there.  Of course there wasn't.  And she said to give her a call if I noticed any swelling at all.