Symptom Of Knee Arthritis? I've had knee pain in both knees for a few years now

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For about 4-5 months now I've had knee pain in both knees, and I've never had knee pain in my life. I get the pain even when just sitting down all day and not moving around. And if I do a lot of walking, it gets worse. It's not a very strong pain, pretty dull actually but it's enough to tell me something is wrong. I'm afraid it will get worse. It's already stopped me from running which I had been doing for over a year. Since it started 4-5 months ago it's been getting worse and worse. So two weeks ago I saw a rhumologist. He said he thought it was a rotated rotula or something like that (I'm in France so I don't know how to say in english, something about la rotule). He said it wasn't arthritis and didn't have anything to do with my Crohn's. I told him I wasn't so sure. So he sent me for an x-ray. I took the x-ray to an orthopedist who did an exam and told me he didn't see anything wrong, and that the rotule was slightly turned and suggested 30 visits with a physical therapist to straighten it out. I don't trust him because he didn't even look at all the x-rays, only one of them! Later that week I had a Crohn's attack and started 60mg of prednisone the day of the attack and then 20mg/day for a week. During this week I didn't have any knee pain! Well I just tapered it down from 20 to 10 and now I'm at 5 and guess what, the knee pain is back! (I'm on 3 Entocorts daily for the Crohn's so the pred is only for attacks). So the fact that the prednisone helped the knee pain tells me it's inflammation and not a rotated rotule whatever they call it. I've been reading on arthritis and read there is a particular kind that affects patients with IBD. The website even said one in 5 patients with Crohn's will have this. The Rhumologist said I don't have it but I have no idea how he could be so sure. I have an appointment to see him again thursday so he can see the x-rays. But I think maybe this rhumologist isn't that good and maybe I should see another. I'm curious if anyone else in this group has went through the same thing? In the past month I've noticed my elbows hurt a little too. I even took a towel to work to lay in front of my keyboard to rest my elbows on it. I know I'm not imagining this, I really do think I'm having joint pain in both the knees and elbows. ....i am being treated now for knee pain which the orthopedist thought was a torn cartilege but isnt...we dont know what its from..but its very very bad tho it has responded to a shot of cortisone..my other knee also hurts but not nearly as badly...and like your case..they both hurt more when i have been walking a lot..but hurt even at night... yes there is a joint pain problem with crohns...and i am on nambumetol which is sort of like a fancy tylenol which is supposed to help with this..but it didnt touch the knee pain.. my xrays did show arthritis in both knees..tho not enough to cause the really bad pain that i have had in one knee.. i also have pains in my feet, wrists, hands...(not elbows) you arent imagining it...and i am currently going through this..like you..in the past when i was on pred(i cant take it anymore)..the pain went away.. arthritis shows up in xrays...if the rheumatologist doesnt treat it..maybe your primary care doctor can? thats who got me on the nambumetol.. yes, a non-destructive type of arthritis under the large umbrella term spondyloarthropathies is called enteropathic. enteropathic takes the form of joint/tendon/tendon connective tissue pain, skin issues and eye inflammation issues. enteropathic arthritis is inflammation, usually from the waist down, but not always. my worst connective tissue inflammation is at my achillies for example. treatment is anit-inflammatory drugs. i found my remicade and methotrexate resolves most of mine, but also take lodine (rx nsaid) on occasion. and you are correct about 5, 10, maybe 20% of ibd sufferers also suffer from one, two or all three of the enteropathic inflammatory side effects. My husband has had CD-T. ilieum. He has sacroillitis, which is inflammation in the sacroilliac joint (across the low back just above his butt). He has had x-rays and there is absolutely no visible problem with his back. He also has eye inflammation. He only gets these problems right before he starts having stomach pains. His chiropractor does not believe that CD causes arthritic problems and I keep trying to educate him. He just argues. I think he needs a different chiro.... lol. My husband was started on Pred 40 mg and took it for a long time...they tapered him down to 5mg and he was on that for about 3 years, because that was before Pentasa was around and we were trying to have kids and the azulfidine affected his fertility. So, they kept him on Pred while we were having our kids. I sometimes wonder now how this will effect him in the long run, as he was on Pred for about five years straight. It seems that when he starts to have the back problems and the eye inflammation, it is not long after that he has stomach aches. I think these may be precursors to CD flares. My first symptom of IBD (although I didn't know it at the time of course) was terrible arthritis in my feet to the point where I could literally not walk more than a few steps and ended up spending lots of $$$ on custom-made orthotics. Have had it in various other places off and on over the years and spent many hours in physical therapy for it. Also get, when necessary, depo-medrol injections from my rheumatologist that help tremendously.