I have rheumatoid arthritis... It can range from only a few joints mildly affected to every single joint in agony. I'm one of the unlucky ones who has every single joint affected by it. But I'm lucky in that it doesn't seem to be permanently damaging my joints. I have a serum-negative form of RA so nothing shows in my bloodwork other than markers to show that inflammation is present.

I don't know a great deal about lupus - I have an aunt and a cousin with lupus and all I know is that they are like me - there's nothing that makes them look sick, but they do have a lot of pain.

Both conditions can vary massively, so I know it's annoying but you really can't determine anything until you get those test results. The fact that they are doing xrays makes me think RA, because of the damage it can do to joints, but I don't know if lupus can damage joints or not, so I could be wrong.

I know both are conditions where the immune system starts to attack the wrong things, and the treatments generally involve suppressing the immune system.

BW