pain in hands

Hi, Don't jump and have surgery, this happened to me, I was told that I might need surgey to release a tendon in my hand when they didn't know I had RA, luckily I didn't have the surgery and later found out I had RA. Get different opinions and go see a RA, they will tell you if you have RA.

Ditto from me!  I actually made it as far as meeting with a hand surgeon for "trigger finger".  He's the one that figured out I had RA and then referred me to a Rheumatologist.  Now after several months of treatment for RA my hands are considerably better. Other than ocassional aches, the "catching" that was driving me nuts is effectively non existant.  While it always scares me to death to offer advice, especially knowing the depths of my ignorance, you really may want to wait until you have more fully explored the RA angle.  It would suck to be diagnosed with RA, and you may still need surgery, but wouldn't it be sweet if after some RA meds you didn't?  For what it's worth (which may be not much!) that's my two cents.