Unexplained symptoms are worth exploring, but it's important to first speak to your GP and have potential medical causes appropriately investigated. This library is for information only and does not replace medical advice, diagnosis or testing.
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Joint pain, medically known as arthralgia, describes pain or discomfort affecting one or more joints.
Joints are the places where bones meet, allowing the body to move, bend and maintain stability. Commonly affected areas include the knees, hips, shoulders, wrists, fingers, ankles and elbows.
Joint pain can feel like a dull ache, sharp discomfort, stiffness, pressure, throbbing or tenderness around a particular joint.
For some people, the pain is clearly associated with movement or physical activity. For others, it occurs at rest, appears without an obvious injury or moves between different joints.
Joint pain may involve:
Aching or tenderness in one or several joints.
Stiffness or difficulty moving comfortably.
Sharp pain during particular movements.
A sensation of pressure or discomfort deep within a joint.
Pain that changes location or intensity.
Discomfort without visible swelling or redness.
Pain alongside muscle aches, fatigue or other symptoms.
Joint pain can occur in conditions such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, other inflammatory disorders, fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Long COVID and a wide range of other illnesses.
It may be temporary or persistent, localised or widespread, and its pattern can vary considerably between individuals.
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Joints are complex structures involving bones, cartilage, ligaments, tendons, muscles and surrounding tissues.
Pain around a joint can arise from several of these structures, as well as from changes in how the nervous system processes sensory information.
The location of pain does not always identify which structure is responsible.
How Joints Work
Joints allow different parts of the skeleton to move in relation to one another.
Many of the body's most mobile joints are called synovial joints. These include the knees, shoulders, hips and fingers.
They contain cartilage, which helps surfaces move smoothly, and synovial fluid, which lubricates the joint.
Ligaments provide stability, while muscles and tendons help control movement.
Although cartilage itself does not contain pain-sensing nerve endings, surrounding structures such as the joint capsule, ligaments and bone can produce pain signals.
This means joint pain can arise from several different tissues.
Inflammation and Joint Pain
Inflammation is one process that can contribute to joint discomfort.
When tissues become inflamed, immune activity and chemical signalling can increase sensitivity in the surrounding nerves.
This may produce pain, warmth, swelling or stiffness.
Inflammatory joint conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, involve immune processes affecting the joints.
However, joint pain does not always involve inflammation.
Someone can experience significant joint discomfort without visible swelling, redness or evidence of an inflammatory condition.
Joint Pain and the Nervous System
Sensory nerves around joints provide information about movement, pressure, position and potentially harmful changes.
These signals travel through the nervous system and contribute to the experience of pain.
In some persistent pain conditions, pain-processing pathways become more sensitive to sensory information.
This can make ordinary movement or pressure feel uncomfortable, even when there is no obvious injury or significant structural damage.
This type of increased sensitivity can contribute to pain in conditions such as fibromyalgia.
However, not all joint pain involves altered pain processing, and different conditions can produce similar sensations through different mechanisms.
Why Joint Pain Can Move Around
One particularly confusing aspect of joint pain is that it does not always remain in the same location.
Someone may experience pain in their knees one day, their wrists the next and their shoulders at another time.
This is sometimes described as migratory joint pain.
In some conditions, different joints become symptomatic at different times because of inflammatory or other physiological processes.
In other cases, widespread pain sensitivity or discomfort in surrounding muscles and tissues may contribute to the experience.
Pain can also be referred from nearby structures, meaning discomfort is felt in a different location from where it originates.
A changing pattern of pain does not, by itself, identify the underlying cause.
Joint Pain and Muscle Pain
Joint pain and muscle pain can be difficult to distinguish.
Muscles, tendons and ligaments surround and support the joints, so discomfort in these tissues may feel as though it comes from inside a joint.
Joint pain is often described as deep, localised discomfort around the point where bones meet.
Muscle pain may feel more widespread across a muscle or muscle group, although the sensations can overlap considerably.
Some people experience both simultaneously, making it difficult to identify exactly where the pain originates.
Stiffness and Movement
Joint stiffness describes a sensation of resistance, tightness or difficulty moving a joint comfortably.
It may occur alongside pain or independently.
Some people experience stiffness after remaining in one position for an extended period, while others notice it particularly upon waking.
Stiffness can involve changes in joint tissues, inflammation, surrounding muscle activity or the perception of movement.
The sensation of stiffness does not always mean that a joint has physically lost its normal range of movement.
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Joint pain doesn't always mean arthritis.
Arthralgia simply means joint pain. Arthritis refers to inflammation or other disease affecting a joint, depending on the type. The terms are not interchangeable.
Joint pain can occur without swelling.
Someone may experience significant discomfort despite having no visible redness, warmth or swelling.
Pain can move between different joints.
Some people experience discomfort that shifts around the body, sometimes without an obvious pattern.
Joint pain and muscle pain can feel similar.
Discomfort around a joint may originate from nearby muscles, tendons, ligaments or other tissues.
Stiffness doesn't always mean reduced mobility.
A joint can feel stiff or resistant even when its range of movement remains relatively normal.
Pain intensity doesn't always reflect joint damage.
The nervous system contributes to pain perception, so the severity of discomfort does not necessarily correspond directly to structural changes.
Several joints can hurt simultaneously.
Joint pain may affect one joint, several joints or multiple areas throughout the body.
Symptoms can fluctuate.
Pain and stiffness may change throughout the day or between days, sometimes without a clear relationship to activity.
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Joint pain can feel very different depending on the location, sensation and pattern of discomfort.
The deep joint ache: Experiencing a persistent ache that feels as though it comes from inside a knee, hip, shoulder or another joint.
The sharp movement pain: Feeling a sudden stab or pinch of discomfort during a particular movement.
The morning stiffness: Waking with joints that feel tight, resistant or uncomfortable to move.
The tender joint: Finding pressure or touch around a joint unusually uncomfortable.
The shifting pain: Experiencing discomfort in different joints at different times, sometimes without an obvious connection.
The widespread ache: Feeling pain across several joints simultaneously, often alongside muscle aches or fatigue.
The pressure sensation: Experiencing a feeling of fullness, pressure or deep discomfort within a joint.
The intermittent flare: Having periods of relatively little discomfort followed by episodes of more noticeable pain.
The pain without visible changes: Experiencing significant joint discomfort despite no obvious swelling, redness or injury.
For some people, joint pain follows a relatively consistent pattern, affecting the same joints in similar ways.
For others, it can be particularly unpredictable. Pain may appear in one joint, disappear completely and later develop somewhere entirely different.
The sensation itself may also change. One episode might involve a dull ache, while another feels sharp, stiff, tender or difficult to locate.
This variability can make joint pain confusing, particularly when there is no visible injury or clear relationship between discomfort and movement.
Joint pain may also overlap with muscle aches, fatigue, weakness and other chronic symptoms, making the overall experience difficult to separate into individual sensations.
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Joint pain can be associated with injuries, inflammatory conditions, arthritis, infections, medication effects and other health problems.
New, persistent, worsening or unexplained joint pain may warrant medical assessment, particularly when accompanied by swelling, warmth, stiffness or changes in mobility.
A joint that becomes suddenly very painful, hot or swollen, particularly alongside fever or feeling generally unwell, requires urgent medical assessment because infection is one possible cause.
Significant joint pain following an injury, particularly when accompanied by deformity or an inability to bear weight, may also require urgent assessment.
