Home Forums Personal History and Progress Threads I’m Finally Getting Serious!

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  • #372511
    bsnyder
    Participant

    THURSDAY, AUGUST 7

    I am in the third day of an apple fast. Tonight I will drink two tablespoons of olive oil. Amazingly I am not really hungry, although apples really aren’t my favorite food. When I started this on Monday morning my left knee was so swollen and hard it truly felt like solid bone! In fact, I worried maybe it had calcified. Monday night I awoke with my knee more swollen than every and in great pain, but by Tuesday evening my knee was getting softer and mushier again. Now, on the third evening my knees is visibly less swollen, it feels like fluid and not bone and I can bend my knee more than I could before.

    This apple fast is in preparation for going on a very low start diet. This will be tricky for me since I am currently a vegetarian and have been for 4 years. After reading the many, many success stories on the kickass.org website I have decided I will radically change my diet in hopes of beating this thing. I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis years ago. I will keep you posted.

    #372512
    bsnyder
    Participant

    SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 2014

    I have AS and have found the kickas.org website. This website has very compelling evidence that a no or low starch diet help halt the progression or even reverse AS. The theory is that people with AS have too much klebsiella bacteria in their bowels along with leaky gut where the bacteria seep through the intestinal lining and cause an auto immune response and swelling in the joints. Coincidentally, my RA has been starting to flare for about the past 3 years and about 4 years ago I became a vegetarian. On the kickas.org website I read that vegetarians, due to their VERY high start diet have 40 TIMES the number of klebsiella bacteria in their gut!! WOW!! I thought vegetarianism was good for me!! Turns out it was just the opposite of how I should be eating!

    Amazingly after years of not eating meat, I have started to eat meat again. For the most part it does not gross me out that much although I find myself running to brush my teeth after eating meat to get the taste out of my mouth. I had a three day apple fast followed by two days of the no starch diet. I am not really noticing any differences yet but I need to have patience. I purchased some iodine to test my food and amazingly I found that cole slaw I had purchased from a grocery store salad bar contained starch! I need to be really careful to make sure I am getting all the starch out of my diet. I need to give this the best chance possible. I will let you know.

    I have to say though that today I feel NO energy. I got my hair colored this morning and we have a party tonight so I am going to nap this afternoon. Maybe I am undergoing withdrawal from the starches. My joint feels a little better – maybe a 5 on a scale of 1-10. My knee, although less swollen than before the apple fast, is still very swollen. I would say my knee swelling is about a 7 with 10 being horrendous.

    #372513
    bsnyder
    Participant

    TUESDAY, AUGUST 12

    I am on DAY 6 of the no starch diet. I have even been testing foods with the iodine before eating them as I have found strange foods like brats have starch. Yesterday I woke up in a fairly major joint flare as I had had a HUGE amount of pumpkin seeds the day before. The NSD says you should generally avoid most nuts and seeds at least until you get into a bit and and can test them out.

    RESULT? My JOINTS feel MUCH better this morning. Really no pain at all. My left knee is still swollen though. I truly think the knee swelling started when I had the root canal messed with. Toward the end of September I get that bad old tooth removed though so I am hopeful the healing of my knees will begin then. I really am impressed with how the NSD seems to be helping. WoW!

    I am having a Cabi clothing party tonight though so I will have lots of starchy chippy bean dip type goodies around though, but I will eat first and stick with the raw veggies. No starch for me!!

    Even in terms of the knee swelling, I know the NSD can’t perhaps heal everything within the first week so maybe over time the NSD will even help my knee.

    I also read a book by an old-time positive thinking type guru, Francis Scoval Chin. She gave an affirmation for “Rhuematism”:

    The Light of the Lord floods my consciousness dissolving all my acid thoughts.
    I love everyone and everyone loves me
    I give thanks for my radiant health and happiness.

    Interestingly, when the arthritis initially started and when it returned after five years remission I was involved in family/business struggles which were very acrimonious. They were both times when I had tons of resentment. I am not saying all that anger caused my arthritis, but I’m sure it didn’t help.

    Following are the things I am doing EVERY DAY:
    Taking Mino MWF and Zithromax T SAT
    Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar and baking soda each morning (in water)
    Taking 10,000 mg fish oil (5K morning and 5K at night)
    Taking 8K of fit C (8K in AM 8K in PM)
    Drinking lots of water/drinking green tea

    I am feeling better lately. Yea!

    #372514
    bsnyder
    Participant

    Saturday, September 20
    Haven’t posted in FOREVER as my old computer went south and I just got a new one. The low starch/meat diet left me wracked with pain! Also, I went to have an MRI on my left knee and ended up at a surgeon who said the meniscus was VERY torn up and my knee joint was surrounded by arthritis and even my knee bone showed damage from inflammatory arthritis. The surgeon didn’t even know I had arthritis so he seemed surprised to have found “inflammatory arthritis” damage. He is doing the operation a week from Wednesday. It is arthroscopic so won’t leave any scars, however, he did say I would be lucky not to need a knee replacement within 5 years.

    PAIN LEVEL – Where 10 is unbearable pain, I am at about an 8! Achy pretty much all over. Left knee swollen and terrible, but also hip ankle, elbow shoulder pain. In prep for the surgery I can’t take any fish oil, vit C or any pain relievers at all. Ouch!!!

    I am REALLY trying to clean up my diet this time. NO SUGAR!!! More salads, good foods, etc. Green tea instead of coffee. Will start back on yoga when I get back in town – am at a car race in Austin with hubby and the boys. After the surgery, I may try meat again. Am disheartened and totally confused. Still on the mino though. Had the root canal extracted with the temporary bridge placed. The surgeon wants me to see an RA doc he recommended. I really don’t want to go that route but I have not been having much luck on my own. I am considering that. Bless you all.

    #372515
    bsnyder
    Participant

    Nov 16, 2014 SUNDAY

    Have NOT reported here in months! Been a very bad reporter. Have realized something important though. Whenever I get my knee injected with sterioids I end up feeling wonderful all over my body. Unfortunately, this causes me to believe I don’t need AP anymore and that I am largely well.

    I had knee surgery around Oct. Then I had a knee injection a week later. As a result of that I felt wonderful all over my body and had the CRAZY believe that the AP had put me in a 3 year long hertz and so I went off the AP. I have been off AP now for about 6 weeks. In the meantime the steroid wore off and I have MUCH more arthritis pain then i did before.

    MY RIGHT ARM IS NOT IN MAJOR PAIN — shoulder and elbows. This was made worse when I thought I needed to start lifting light weights. This pretty much started the arm pain a couple of weeks ago and it has not quit since

    NOV 14, 2014 I StARTED AP AGAIN MINO MWF and ZIthroMAX TuES AND SAT.

    I tried to do a juice fast a month ago to determine if I was allergic to any foods. I am embarrassed to admit that I could only do the fast for two days before I broke it! I am SO mad at myself for that!!! I wonder if food allergies could be part of this thing, but can’t fast long enough to find out!!

    #372516
    bsnyder
    Participant

    8:45 AM March 3, 2015

    Haven’t posted in quite a while…so much for my resolve to keep detailed tabs on this thing. This frustrating, expensive RA has taken a turn for the worse. For three months I have been avoiding the foods I am sensitive to. How do I know? I took a $700 food sensitivity test. I read Barbara Allen’s book in which she discusses the supposed link between RA and food sensitivities. I say “supposed” because after three months on a VERY restrictive diet, although I did feel better during part of the time, I now feel about worse than ever.

    My left knee is so swollen I walk with a limp (after the steroid I had injected there wore off last week after only about four weeks), my right elbow hurts, my upper back hurts, and I have assorted other aches and pains. I am also trying to bleach my teeth whiter to match the bridge I had installed which replaced the root canal I was convinced may be part of the RA. Well, after having whittled down a perfectly good, gorgeous tooth to be replaced by the bridge (and spending $1,600) I still have the RA. Here is a brief list of all the expensive things I have done to try and deal with this RA:

    Been to Ida Grove to have IV antibiotics
    Had a perfectly good tooth whittled down and replaced with a bridge after having a root canal removed
    Become a vegetarian
    Then become a carnivore after the food sensitivity testing found I was sensitive to almost every food I ate
    Had Culligan install a water filter on my home faucet to get rid of chlorine which I am supposedly sensitive to
    Bought I don’t know how many supplements and super foods
    Did Yoga
    Meditated
    Had breast implants removed twice

    WHERE AM I NOW? After about the past three years of the above and lots of confusion, and trying to do it through Mino (100 MG MWFR) and more natural means, I feel defeated. I also took a Celebrex this morning and am considering going to a rheumatologist. I initially had RA and was treated by a rheumy + I also took the antibiotics. Many years ago this brought me into complete remission for five lovely years, then the RA came back. I am wondering now if I should go back into standard medical treatment. In fact, I think I will ask that question and see what others think.

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