I agree.

The advice should be to go somewhere where they can actually physically examine him, there's a host of hands-on physical tests that would point the way.

Barring that, he is missing a host of crucial information, such as family history, connection of affected joints to sports done at the time, what kind of pain, triggers for the pain, the list goes on.

That he doesn't provide his health care provider's opinion makes me wonder if he even sought professional medical attention. If so, why withhold it and make it even more of a guessing game? If not, I mean, really? (It'd be hard to help someone who - if my suspicion proved correct - chooses such an irrational way of solving a problem that he attributes "feeling the worst he ever felt in his life" to.) OP, if you're reading this, what did the orthopaedic doctor say? Had any bloodwork done, ANA, dsDNA etc. antibodies in particular?

I wonder why noen's bad advice is downvoted, while a random stab of "might be autoimmune" isn't.