Rheumatoid Arthritis

Thomas 2016 USA

Update on my journey with RA. I have seronegative RA. At age 62 in May 2014, these are all of the places I had pain; shoulders, back of my neck, feet-toes, elbows, fingers and knuckles-both hands, right knee, right wrist. Fingers swollen both hands. I was afraid to shake someone’s hand. Swelling of ankles some days. I took two aspirin with my daily nap. Woke up at about 2:00 am, stiff and sore all over, had to take two aspirin to get thru the night. Did not sleep well at all most nights. Other symptoms; extreme fatigue, weakness all over, especially in the hands, I had to use two hands to pick up a gallon of milk to move it, sleeping more than normal. Had to use the rubber helper to open bottles and could not cut the grass for five months.

I went to a Rheumatologist in August 2014. This my Drs. summary of my lab work. “Overall, your symptoms with the elevated markers of inflammation are most consistent with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis (seronegative means that the antibody tests are negative, which can be seen in up to 30% of RA patients).” 
I read about the AP treatment on-line before my appointment. I asked the RA doctor if she used antibiotics for RA treatment, she said “No”. I said “I will get back to you after I check the side affects of methotrexate and prednisone.” On-line I found The Roadback web-site. I wanted to try the antibiotic treatment, so I e-mailed Roadback and found an AP Dr. in my area to start my treatment.

I started medical treatment in October of 2014 and stopped treatment October of 2015, these are the results; no pain anywhere (all the pain is gone), after two months of treatment, no aspirin or any pain meds. All of the swelling of the joints, gone (after the first week of treatment). I was really surprised when that happened. My strength and endurance have gradually improved and are back to normal (for a 64 year old man) and I am at 100% of what I was before any of the RA symptoms hit me. I did change my diet totally and my Dr. believes that did help a lot. Also my need for sleep is back to normal. Most nights one bathroom visit and that is it. I feel great now and can almost forget how bad I felt last May.

New Blood work 9/17/15. CRP= 0.30 ESR/WSR = 2.0 All of my blood work is good and no indicators of inflammation.
Blood work done 2/23/15. CRP = 0.30 ESR/WSR = 1.0 All of my blood work is good and no indicators of inflammation.
Old blood work 8/8/14: CRP = 3.9 WSR = 25.0 and other inflammation markers.
I took for 12 months “Minocycline” 100 mg. Two capsules MWF or six caps per week. The other days I took probiotics to keep the bowels right.

I am currently not taking any meds and I have had zero side effects with this treatment.  You have to change your diet in order to give this treatment its best chance to work for you.  I asked my Doctor this question on March 2, 2015.
“Am I in remission?” She said “Yes, I am very happy for you”!  In May of 2014 before all the RA symptoms hit me, for two days I was cutting, splitting, and stacking wood. Doing hard physical work, putting a lot of stress on my body. I forgot that I was 62 and not 32 years old. Also during that time frame I was eating more sweets with white sugar. I believe these factors contributed to weakening my immune system and giving an opportunity for the mycoplasma to attack.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my story.

My personal web-site: I have sent to over 700 people on twitter, Patients, Doctor’s and other medical groups all over the world.

http://rheumatoidarthritishealing.weebly.com

My ANRF post

http://www.curearthritis.org/toms-rheumatoid-arthritis-journey/

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