A lot of the stories on this page sound eerily familiar. I have had inexplicable swelling in both of my knees, as well as my left elbow and occasionally in other joints, since i was seventeen. I am now nineteen, and have been diagnosed with "mixed connective tissue disorder" and put on hydroxychloroquinine, which really does very little to help. There isn't a lot of pain, usually, but it's embarrassing to not be able to flex my knees as much as other people can, and i hate looking at my own knees in the mirror compared to people with non-swollen knees! The only thing i've found that has helped at all has been steroids--once in the form of an injection and once in pill form, and those cleared everything up for a few days and made me feel wonderful--temporarily. But doctors don't want to give me steroids because they say they have "unwanted side effects"--but i think that any side effects they might have would probably be worth it, to have functional knees and elbows again. I am very fed up with doctors not doing anything to help.