HELP ready to give up

[51 year old]

I dont think my prior post went thru? I will try again.
I was told I have RA a year ago and have been on minocycline since July. My mom was diagnosed with RA at 71. I was diagnosed at 50. I did everything right my whole life. I only ate organic foods, exercised 7 days a week, believe in alternative medicine, supplements, and just health living and I get RA. What a bummer. It is not fair!!! Should I have ate fast food, smoked, and drank heavily all my life? My doctor thinks out of the box and she is stumped why I have not improved. At first the pain, swelling, and inflamation was so bad that life was miserable. The pain was a 10 on a scale of 10. Now the pain and swelling has diminshed to bearable but I still reach for the iburpohen several times a day, occasional narcotic, hot tub in the morning or hot shower if I am traveling and I can barely walk at times. The pain in the knees and feet and ankles and truned me into a hobbling specimen. My quality of life sucks. My SED rate and RA factor is back to normal but I fear all the destruction that is still occurring to my joints.
I am just about ready to start the dreaded Methotrexate regime.
Please give me some advise.

Your first post DID go through as has this one. Please look in the General Discussion area. It was moved to General Discussion from here (Personal History and Progress) which is for authors’ journal notes only and which cannot generate responses from others. RBFV

[Valsmum]

I replied to your last post as well as a few others, look for it under topics.
I hope you feel better.
Sheri

[Eva Holloway]

51
sorry to hear you have so much pain. 😥 😥 Welcome to this site, there are lots of people able to talk to you. What we tell you is from the experience we have from out illness and what has helped us. Taking antibiotics is a slow process and it may take more then the given time to work. I have been on antibiotics for over three years and it took me good two years to have almost no pain, but then I had been taking lots of other stuff from the rheumy which didn’t help. Some people are actually talking some immun suppressing medication with the antibiotics because they are feeling so bad. Every one is different, so I can not go by what they are taking because all the other medication actually made me more ill.
Are you taking Minocyline every day or MWF? sometimes taking too much of the antibiotics my give you a herx and you will hurt more. Are you having deformities or are you in a lot of pain when walking (from the RA)? Sometimes a bath with epsom salt helps. I can’t sit in the tub so I use a small infrared saune several times a week and that helps.
write in your signature line what your illness is and what medication you are taking, this way it’s easier to see what may help or hurt.
Eva 🙂

Eva Holloway

[Jan Lucinda1]

Your last post went through. Good luck to you.

Jan

[dianne-sunshinecoast]

hi 51., replied to your last post, hope you get relief soon 🙂 sending good thoughts..regards..di

[judy cash]

Hi 51,
I am 52 and was diag. with RA two years ago. I was very healthy up until a few years before my diag. none of the doctors knew what was wrong with me. I suffered, my kids and family suffered also…..When I did receive my RA diag. I got started on 100 mg. of minocycline twice a day, and one week of Clindy IV’s. At first I got worse, then I slowly began to feel better, until a few months age when I started feeling like my old self again…It has been almost 2 years since I started AP, and it did not help overnight…It does take time….But it did work for me. I have not had any more of the severe pain that I had before starting AP. PLEASE read my post titled “I FEEL LIKE INSPIRING OUR NEWBYS”. If I can help you in any way , just let me know.
Judy

[Noraclaypod]

I was where you are four months ago. I am now completely free of symptoms. Tried Minocin but I couldn’t afford anything but the generic and it broke me out. My derm refused to prescribe anymore for me. (I never found a Scleroderma doctor.)
In desperation I tried a weird treatment that I absolutely didn’t believe would work, but it did. I stopped eating gluten altogether, switched to bottled purified water with no chlorine or flouride, and started drinking 1/8 teaspon of 20 Muleteam Borax in a litre of water three days on, one day off.
I have tons of energy, no dizzyness, none of the intestinal problems I was having, and all my swollen joints went down. I lost the 40 pounds I’d put on because I counldn’t exercise or move. The shortness of breath is gone. I spring out of bed in the morning with no joint pain! I haven’t used my cane in two months!
I wish you’d try it, if nothing else is working.
The biggest benefit is you’re not adding to your body’s toxic load with all those drugs. My hair stopped falling out, and my immune system is functioning again. I used to avoid contact with my grandchildren because I caught every cold they brought home from school. Now if I get a cold it’s gone in a day or two. I climb stairs at a trot and can squat and stoop to pick things up–I hadn’t been able to do that in years. If you had seen me struggling to get on my feet and lurching while I tried to drag my self around, you would’nt believe I’m the same person. It only took two months for me to see dramatic results. God blessed me.
I believe Systemic Scleroderma and RA are caused by the same bacterium (mycoplasm) or a related bacterium, so it’s worth a try, and the best part is it won’t hurt you. I had absolutely no side effects, despite a lifetime of allergies to everything from drugs to ant bites. I don’t like to hear about people suffering, and I so hope you find that this helps you.

[Trudi]

Thanks, Nora, for this post and the further information you gave me via PM.

For anyone interested, if you google “borax for arthritis,” you will find much information on this treatment.

Take care,
Trudi

Lyme/RA; AP 4/2008 off and on to 3/2010; past use of quinolones may be the cause of my current problems, (including wheelchair use); all supplements (which can aggravate the condition) were discontinued on 10/14/2012. Am now treating for the homozygous MTHFR 1298 mutation. Off of all pain meds since Spring '14 (was on them for years--doctor is amazed--me too). Back on pain med 1/2017. Reinfected? Frozen shoulder?

[gordbentley]

ummmm, isn’t borax extremely toxic?? not sure if we should be promoting this?

http://www.ehow.com/list_6022301_borax-health-effects.html

[Noraclaypod]

If it were, I’d be dead by now, ha ha. I’m glad you raised this concern, and you are very right to do so. You may save someone from drinking the wrong thing: Never mistake 20 Mule Team Borax for Boric Acid, which is extremely toxic.

20 Mule Team Borax is Sodium borate decahydrate, which is what made me well. It is not the same thing at all as Boric Acid, which is highly toxic and should never be ingested.
If you’re in the UK, the distinction may be blurred by different packaging and labeling laws.

Borax has been used in pesticides, (but is a natural substance that is mined, not synthesized) for this reason, I was highly skeptical and hesitated myself before trying it. The fact is, you take a very small amount, way too small to do YOU any harm, but it is deadly to the mycoplasms!

I’m not promoting anything, simply telling you what worked. I was near death in December, and now I am not only working again, I am symptom free.

I can’t even feel my plaques anymore, they’ve become as flat as normal skin, and soft. I do have permanently tanned skin where they were, but there is no thickening or pain, and there are no new ones forming. I will continue on this course of treatment for the rest of my life which will hopefully be long! I drink the mixture one day a week now.

I had no choice but to seek an alternative because of my allergic reaction to antibiotics, which work (although slowly) for most people, and the fact that I couldn’t get an appointment with a Scleroderma doctor. If you are getting good care from a doctor and the antibiotics are working for you, I am very happy to hear it. If not, follow my example, it isn’t going to kill you, (or even make you sick) because I would never endorse something I hadn’t tried. I’m also skeptical. It worked, I’m well, and that’s all I can tell you.

[Joe RA]

Several months ago I met a guy at the farm where I get my raw milk and he told me his mother was taking boron for her rheumatoid arthritis 😆 When I got home I searched “boron for arthritis” and I found all kinds of benefits for arthritis and other diseases, also. Borax is boron is sodium borate, all the same stuff, we all get trace amounts of boron in the water we drink the air we breath and the food we eat the thing is no one knows the safe upper limits for it. ❓ believe it or not there is trace amounts of arsenic in the raw milk I drink The best to all, Joe RA

[lynnie_sydney]

The calcium supplement that I take is with 1mg boron (as borax) and a small 1mcg of D3. The boron, zinc and magnanese and copper are supposed to potentiate and guard against osteoporosis. Just 1/4 tablet daily raised my 25-OH Vit D levels from just in normal range at 54 to mid normal range at 79 in 9 months. Lynnie

Be well! Lynnie

Palindromic RA 30 yrs (Chronic Lyme?)
Mino 2003-2008 100mg MWF - can no longer tolerate any tetracyclines
rotating abx protocol now. From Sep 2018 MWF - a.m. Augmentin Duo 440mg + 150mg Biaxsig (roxithromycin). p.m. Cefaclor (375mg) + Klacid 125mg + LDN 3mg + Annual Clindy IV's
Diet: no gluten, dairy, sulphites, low salicylates
Supps: 600mg N-AC BID, 1000mg Vit C, P5P 40mg, zinc picolinate 60mg, Lithium orotate 20mg, Magnesium Oil, Bio-identical hormones (DHEA + Prog + Estrog)

[gordbentley]

Nora, you have me intrigued. do you buy this stuff off the net or can i expect to find it at the supermarket? and if anyone knows if it interacts with AP please inform me and others who may be interested. I think I may try this. heck if it gets me off the ABX I am down like a clown. 😆

[Trudi]

Hi Gord–

I did a lot of research on this over the past week. Here are some sites that have a lot of information:

http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/borax.html
http://members.upnaway.com/~poliowa/Away%20with%20Arthritis.html
http://www.borax.com/pioneer55.html

Happy reading!

Trudi

Lyme/RA; AP 4/2008 off and on to 3/2010; past use of quinolones may be the cause of my current problems, (including wheelchair use); all supplements (which can aggravate the condition) were discontinued on 10/14/2012. Am now treating for the homozygous MTHFR 1298 mutation. Off of all pain meds since Spring '14 (was on them for years--doctor is amazed--me too). Back on pain med 1/2017. Reinfected? Frozen shoulder?

[gordbentley]

Thank you Trudi

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