These are painless lumps you can feel under your skin. They occur on the bony part of the forearms, around the ankles, or even the pulp of the fingers. Some doctors think they are lumps of inflammation around small blood vessels. These lumps rarely cause problems and usually last only a few months. The nodules can occur in other rheumatic diseases as well.
Inflammation is another symptom and can lead to injury to the joints.
However, months and even years can pass before sufficient injury to the joints shows up in x-rays. Inflammation of the tendons, muscles, and tissues around the joints also causes trouble by reducing your lifestyle and functioning due to pain. Injury to these tissues also can cause deformity and problems with joint motion and strength. Inflammation of a muscle is myositis , and pain in a muscle is myalgia . Inflammation of the tendons is tendinitis, and pain in a tendon is tenalgia , but for some reason no one uses this term.