Welcome Mark,

Welcome. I look forward to your insights. We all have our theories as to
why and how these symptoms happen. Those may be wrong or right, but the
observations are undeniable, and repeatable.

I took the liberty of copying your post, as I have copied many posts
here  that describe symptoms. Your post that mentioned chocolate and
rheumatoid arthritis has prompted me to share some things I find
interesting.

I have included in my lay lectures some excerpts from a medical textbook
that demonstrate the cause of rhematoid arthritis (RA), although the
textbook concludes that the cause is unknown. The excerpts are taken
from  Robbins Pathological Basis of Disease:

page 1515: "RA is a chronic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology
[cause]."

page 1516: "Central enigmas about RA are: (1) what initiates the
inflammatory joint disease, and (2) what accounts for the progressive
nature of the destructive arthritis.

"Conceivably, an infectious agent might initiate a process and then
disappear, leaving behind a self-perpetuating reaction; but this is
shear speculation born out of desperation.

"Despite all the intriguing speculations, the nature of the trigger that
initiates the inflammatory reaction is unknown.

"Whatever the stimulus, there is clear evidence that the succeeding
events are immunologic in nature."

Let's now flip forward some 1200 pages earlier in the same text, the
immune response:

page 262: "The immune response comprises all the phenomena that result
from the specific interaction of cells of the immune system with
antigens."

page 263: "Antigens can be introduced by normal routes (e.g., the
respiratory and GI tract) or by artificial means (intravenous or
subcutaneous injections)."

Although Robbins makes the modest claim that they don't know the cause
of RA, these excerpts seem to say otherwise:
1. The cause of RA is unknown, but it is an immune response.

2. The immune response is set off by antigens (allergens).

3. Antigens enter the body in what is eaten, inhaled, or injected.

The bulk of that immune chapter goes on to describe the antigen-antibody
complex setting off the response in tussue through-out the body. I also
think Marks description is the best guess.

I have to ask, as anyone noticed that chocolate, even non dairy
chocolate, causes problems? That has been my experience with patients
who have musculoskeletal reactions to dairy.

Daniel A. Twogood, D.C.