I've suffered with joint pain for much of my adult life, at times severe. I've tested positive for rheumatoid factor, sometimes had a positive ANA and sometimes not. CRP and ESR were never elevated.
I've determined now that it is caused by eating too much carby foods that are not meat (implicates my trash microbiome IMO). I used to think coffee was contributing, but that turned out not to be the case once I dropped fruit intake lower. Coffee is fine if I cap sugar from fruit at around 60-70g daily. Zero joint pain these days, lifting 5x a week with no pain, up and down mountains like a mountain goat. Seems like TRT helped also.