A friend is experiencing odd, minor lay tender and rotating joint swelling, episodic, it comes and goes. There is medical opinion that this is indicative of CHF, but the echo shows only atrial fib and he is on Coumadin and waiting for a. Fib follow up....my Dad experienced something like this many years ago, the thinking was that it was from rheumatic fever...but, he had a tonsillectomy and the symptoms disappeared. So might an infection cause this? He is active, a jogger, ran 6 k yesterday, he also was hospitalized with pneumonia when the a.fib was discovered a few months ago....??