I am only 25 and a mother of 2 but I am becoming more concerned about my aching body.

I have always had pain In my knees as a child from the age of about 12 on. Then I started to have severe shoulder pain at about 14. It always just would come and go and would sometimes hurt worse than other times or last longer(weeks) than other times. Sometimes it wouldnt hurt for months. I had my son at 17 and nursed him. It seemed like once I started nursing him, I had to lay on my side in bed at night and thats when I really noticed my shoulder pain to be unbearable. It felt like a shooting pain right in my shoulder. The same happen when I had my daughter 3 years later, only worse. It was uncomfortable to nurse her as well but now my shoulder pain was more frequent and since then which is now 5 years ago, I can no longer sleep on either one of my arms. I have to sleep with my arms either above my head or sleep on my back to not put any pressure on my shoulders. The pain gets so severe it wakes me at night. But the pain will last through the next couple weeks and I almost feel like my arms are hanging longer than normal. Like they are pulling on the joint. When I am having the severe pain, if I hold my arms to my side, I cannot lift them over my head. I do not have full rotation of them when I am experiencing the pain. My knees are hurting everyday but somedays worse than others. In the last 2 or 3 years. I have noticed a loud grinding noise in my joints when I move my knee. If it is really quiet in the room, you can hear the noise and if you cup your hand over my knee, you can feel it as well. The pain in my knee does get bad if bent too long or in the car or stairs, they just hurt but sometimes almost unbearably bad! This last year I have started with slight pain in my fingers when it is cold or when writing for long periods. Numbness in my hands started too. But only half of my hand will go numb. The half that goes numb will have no feeling but no movement either, But it goes away after a few minutes. Muscle cramping is more freguent too. I can make my body have a cramp just by flexing a certain way. Fatigue is a factor. I hope some one reads this and either can give me some insight on RA or maybe someone out there has the same symptoms!