Which Pain is Which?

I've started a new thread as Kate's original question re PMR or old back pain has had lots of replies and I feel my experience/query, although in some ways similar will make it all a bit unwieldy and some of what I want to say is irrelevant to the original post.

I must have had osteo arthritis for more than thirty years. It began with my hands which are now what you might call gnarled.  I first noticed pain which made playing the piano for the children in my school uncomfortable but I managed for a while. Then I retired and no longer played. At this stage there was no swelling; that came later and when it did my hands became stiffer and stiffer but less and less painful. My feet are now going the same route and I hobble a bit when I first get up. As the day goes on it all eases and by evening I feel pretty well ok but only if I keep moving. Sit still for an hour and I creak.

To a lesser extent I have pain in one knee and also lower back or it could be hip, not sure.  This could be attributable to too much gardening, of course, or plain old age. Or could some of it be PMR? So I have at least four possibilities. 

There are days when I think almost fondly of PMR and the steroids that kept them all at bay! But my last ESR came back as 3 which I know doesn't prove anything but doesn't make Pred. look like the first thing to try.

I cannot take paracetamol and have never tried any NSAIDs and given my track record I'm not keen to do so.  I suppose if I did try and all the pains went then I'd know it's not PMR.

Perhaps I ought to post this under Arthritis. But that's where I came in; how to tell which pain?

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