what is the best nutritional treatment for rheumatoid?

[diddy]

has any one tried a diet plan that really works with rheumatoid ??
I have been reading about gluten free diet and alkaline diet but are they enough or there must be some specific way of eating in order to get good results with rheumatoid?
I’ve also read about Dr. Mercola diet plan and even took the nutritional typing test , according to it I’m mixed type..has any one tried that type diet plan ???

[Maz]

Hi Diddy,

Nice to meet you. 🙂

Dr. Mercola is a bit of a funny one, because while he initially supported antibiotic therapy and Dr. Brown’s work (he still has this literature on his site), he has switched to using alternative therapies, such as EFT, UV treatments, and supplements, along with diet and no longer advocates for AP (antibiotic protocols) for which is the focus of this discussion forum and the Road Back Foundation website. This is kind of confusing for folks who find Mercola’s site, first, and want to start antibiotic therapy, but are told he no longer uses it when they call his offices. I believe Mercola has an “eat for your type” questionnaire on his site…have you checked that out?

There are some folk here who follow Mercola’s approach and have also found a particular diet to be supportive of the treatment, but whatever diet folks find most helpful, individualizing diet tends to be just one supportive element or piece of the puzzle while on a road back to health in addition to their antibiotic therapy and any other supportive adjuncts used. It’s such an individual thing – some folks do well on specific diets while others don’t notice much difference. Like all things RA, everyone seems to be unique in what helps or doesn’t help.

Are you already using antibiotic therapy for your rheumatoid arthritis or are you looking for any assistance to get started with antibiotic protocols (AP)?

[lynnie_sydney]

Hi Diddy
In terms of dietary approaches to arthrides, you might want to look into Leaky Gut syndrome. My AP doc and Naturopath say that all people with rheumatoid disease suffer from it and that healing this is part of the treatment approach. In my own case, I was found to have sensitivities to gluten, dairy, sulphites, salicylates. (Recent blood testing also showed that I have two of the genetic markers for celiac although I dont have full blown celiac disease). What I noticed when first cutting out gluten is that my stomach no longer bloats on occasion and I no longer experienced ravenous hunger – neither of which I connected to gluten. I also lost weight). It’s not easy to completely cut it out (gluten is the world’s best and cheapest binding and thickening agent and is found everywhere and only partially removing from your diet will not work. Cutting out sulphites is good for everyone as they are very bad for everyone’s health and especially immune compromised folk. It means, however, that you need to basically cut out all packaged food, which is full of sulphites, deli meats and commercially produced dried fruit.

IMO Dr LG (also listed as an AP doc) gives one of the best explanations of Leaky Gut and how to treat it. Link to this below:
http://www.mdheal.org/leakygut.htm

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)

[Valsmum]

YES !
I was dxd with RA 3 years ago. I had visibly swollen joints in my knees, wrists, elbow, sternum and backside and hips. I could not believe the pain I was expericeing would not go away, it was an 8 every time I woke up and I remained in pain all day too. I tried,Humira, Remicade, Metheltrexate and Orecica. I thought remicade was working but it gave me a horrible heart reaction and also I would get severely anemic with all those meds. When I would take break from the meds my anemia would go away so I knew it was a side effect, a very bad side effect, I had to get a blood transfusion, yuck 6 units of blood .
I noticed that when I would eat wheat and dairy my knees swelled up. I read a lot about diet and in my medical encyclopedia diet is the top factor for cancer, so why would it not be a cause for an autoimmune disease.

I watched ” Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” its a documentary on hulu.com (you can watch it for free). Basically our bodies are sick and diet ( fruits and veggies) can heal it. It took awhile for me get used to eating just fruits and veggies and I avoided starches. After awhile I incorporated some other foods, but like Dr. Furman suggests in his book “Eat to Live” eat 90% good highly nutritious food and 10 % other food. I think juicing fruts and veggies for a week would be a good idea to see if you feel better. I just stuck with it even though cheated so many times with stuff that made my joints hurts, I just never gave up and I am so happy I just stayed with it, my joints look great, my nodules are almost all gone, I had four and now I can just feel one.

One man’s meat is another man’s poison

PS Also if you have low back pain you will benefit from the No Starch Diet. I don’t eat starches, and I follow the No Starch Diet, it relieves my si joint pain. You can use iodine to see if a food is starchy, iy changes from amber brown to blue black if the food is starchy. I don’t know if I have AS too, but following the NSD makes my back much better.

Take care!!

[diddy]

thank you every one for your care.. I’m sorry i have not introduced myself yet ..I’m Diddy from Egypt ..I have RA for 4 years now (started when i was 23 years old) .It actually took me a whole year ,may be more, to be properly diagnosed as my first RF test came out negative and my symptoms were mild at that point ; then I started to get worse after stressful personal experience , my condition was bad .Every joint and muscle in my body was aching. I also noticed that my RA was atypical , as I’m not middle aged, it affected my muscles and tendons more that it did to my joints and bones and it started in the big joints (hips ,elbows and shoulders) .I was bedridden for about 3 months. I went to a rheumatologist and he gave me methotrexate and solupred which I took for a year but he had to add another drug (apetoid or Leflunomide 20 mg) for better control of my arthritis esp. my right knee effusion.My symptoms were controlled but I got very depressed ;my doctor told me that it’s one of the side effects of methotrexate!!!!. Anyways , I got married ,so i stopped taking MTX and apetoid , even refused to take Imuran (took only solupred 20 mg/day).
My father who is doctor and acupuncturist researched other treatment options on the internet and suggested the AP of Dr.Brown.
As i live in Egypt and we have no pharma companies that produce minocyclins , i had to take the closest thing which is vibramycin 100 mg cap, increased the dose up to 3 times /week and clindamycin cap once/week ,increased the dose up to 900 mg.
I can’t say that i had no good results, my number of affected joints has decreased markedly to be limited to my knees and hands, but my arthritis was not fully controlled and i had to take a lot of deprofos injections to get my recurrent knee effusion (swelling) under control. Two months ago I had a huge knee effusion that actually caused a rupture and leakage in my knee , my whole leg and knee were very swollen and I also developed finger deformities. In addition , I recently had what’s called a spontaneous tendon rupture of the thumb muscle. I lost the extension movement in my left thumb meaning that i can’t bend it backwards (semi-paralyzed thumb)
So now in order to get a repair surgery for my hand my arthritis should be under complete control because the inflammation causes the tissues to be very friable and any surgery ‘d be risky and the healing ‘d be bad esp. with the high corticosteroids dose I’m on right now.
My surgeon told me to go back to my rheumy get drug treatment and come back for surgery when my joints become calm again; so I had to go back to MTX and Leflunomide.
that’s bad news for me for many reasons ;first of all i hate immunosuppressive drugs, they are not the solution and have bad side effects (elevated my liver enzymes when i was taking them),second I’ve just started seeking pregnancy which i have to stop for at least 6 months if not more.third thing is, the repair has to be done at an early stage (that’s three weeks from the date of injury) otherwise the muscle ‘d retract and atrophies and I’ll need extra work as tendon transfer , I’m already past two and a half weeks.
so all I’m doing in my life right now is trying every thing ‘d help me get fast control of my arthritis and decrease corticosteroids before surgery. I tried dieting and now on dairy-free gluten-free salt -restricted sugar-restricted alkaline diet. i never eat any processed food , no red meat , only fish and farm poultry , raw veggies as much as possible. I went to Dr.Mercola.com and took that nutritional typing questionnaire and my result was mixed type person. I apply most of his dietary tips for my type hoping I’m on the right way. I take acupuncture sessions which is -in my opinion- the only thing in alternative medicine that really works , i highly recommend it because of its immediate relief.
So if any one can give me extra advice for my condition I’d be deeply grateful . ,esp. about whether I should continue taking vibramycin and clindamycin with my immunosuppressants or not , and what about the drug interactions between these drugs????

[lynnie_sydney]

Hi Diddy – thanks for introducing yourself and detailing what you are contending with.

it affected my muscles and tendons more that it did to my joints and bones and it started in the big joints (hips ,elbows and shoulders)

Those kind of symptoms are highly suggestive of Palindromic Arthritis which, typically, affects the larger joints and often uni-lateral (versus RA which tends to affect the smaller ones and is bi- lateral (both sides). You can read about my experience with Palindromic RA in my original testimonial, (link to it in my signature). Palindromic Arthritis/Rheumatism/RA (names for it vary) is also a typical way that the rheumatological type of Lyme Disease begins. I am also wondering if this may well be the reason that Vibramycin has had some beneficial affect – it is doxycycline which is used in Lyme protocols. You may like to look into this some more – great news for you that your Father is obviously a very open-minded doctor and acupuncturist and has researched for you. I’m sure he will be a great help to you ongoing.

I am also wondering if travel is an option for you? There is a very good AP Doctor in Johannesberg (if Africa a reasonable geogrpahic) option for you. Let us know if you want her name and details. Alternatively, if you are considering Lyme as a possibility, it might be worth your while contacting one of the European Lyme groups (such as EuroLyme) to find out about potential Lyme Literate Doctors in your region and testing. There is a very good laboratory in Germany which alot of Doctors in Australia are now using to test for possible Lyme and co-infections called Infectolab (http://www.infectolab.com – click on the British flag for the English version).

Hope this has been of some help. No doubt others will have more to add.

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)

[Maz]

@diddy wrote:

So if any one can give me extra advice for my condition I’d be deeply grateful . ,esp. about whether I should continue taking vibramycin and clindamycin with my immunosuppressants or not , and what about the drug interactions between these drugs????

Hi Diddy,

Thanks so much for your introduction. When you feel ready, please go ahead and add a signature line, as this can really help to generate responses from others. Include things like your date of diagnosis, diagnosis, meds and supps you’re currently on, etc. It’s easy to do this by going to your User Control Panel, up top, and then clicking on your Profile and then the Edit Signature tab. This can be edited as many times as you wish.

That is fantastic that your Dad is a physician and was open to helping you get started on the treatment. If it would help further, there is a very experienced AP Physician with whom your Dad can consult by phone or email on your behalf to help tailor a protocol for you. Just let me know and I’d be happy to send you his contact info in a PM (private message). It’s a great shame that you don’t have access to minocycline in Egypt. Is there any way you can import it from another country, such as Canada? Vibramycin is a brand name of doxycycline, but you might just find that minocycline is a little more effective and worth trialing, at any rate. Also, would you Dad be willing to do IV clindamycin for you instead of orals?

You’ve certainly had a rough time and I can relate to the severity of your RA, as I, too, was very severe in the beginning. There is so much one can do to support AP (antibiotic protocols), including diet, supplements, hormone re-balancing, detoxification, etc. While pregnant, however, you would need to change your antibiotic protocol as tetracyclines cannot be taken during this time (affects baby’s bones and teeth), but this is something you could discuss with Dr. S. (the doctor mentioned above who is very kind to freely consult with other physicians and patients on the therapy).

Have you had a chance to read The New Arthritis Breakthrough yet, by Henry Scammell? If not, you can either obtain a hard copy through Amazon.com, but also available in Kindle format for download. This book includes Dr. Brown’s original book, The Road Back, and it’s full of answers to most of the questions new APers have about the therapy. It can be a long road back, but it’s one worth taking, especially if one is working with a supportive physician (you’re very fortunate in this respect! 🙂 ).

If you hang around here, you’ll find this forum is full of information and patient experience and within a few months you’ll be a lay expert in your own right.

Do you think your Dad would mind Road Back adding him as a provider for Egypt? Currently, we don’t have any listings for your country and it would be just wonderful to have him as a provider for others in the middle east.

[JohnnyMax]

I have read on more than one occasion of people using the Paleo diet in helping RA. Personally I used to eat higher fat when I was younger and was always healthy, then as I got older cut back thinking it was the healthy way to eat, not sure if that is correct. Anyway, I just recently upped my fat intake and found in a day or two the stiffness in my hands when I first wake up has lessened. Maybe a coincidence, can’t say for sure. If anything I know that saturated fats contribute to hormone production, in my case testosterone. I know this since I used to lift extensively when I was younger and had my test checked from time to time and found this correlation. Anyway, test may be one of the reason men are less likely to get these immune issues since it suppresses the inflammatory effects of RA and Lupus. Not sure if it works for women to the same extent but it should help somewhat. Food for thought.

[Maz]

@JohnnyMax wrote:

Anyway, test may be one of the reason men are less likely to get these immune issues since it suppresses the inflammatory effects of RA and Lupus. Not sure if it works for women to the same extent but it should help somewhat. Food for thought.

You could be right about that, John. There is a LLMD in NYC who said the same thing – that testosterone was protective – in one of his talks (see first video):

http://www.lymeresourcemedical.com/resources.php

Here are some articles about studies that made an interesting correlation to testosterone deficiency in men with seronegative RA:

http://arthritis.about.com/b/2013/04/04/lower-testosterone-levels-associated-with-seronegative-rheumatoid-arthritis-in-men.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1003446/

Plenty more on PubMed if you have time to browse.

Could be a chicken or egg situation….inflammatory cytokines affecting hormone levels or lower hormone levels predisposing folks to RA? My LLMD is of the opinion that chronic infections disturb the hormone-producing glands in the body as he finds that pretty much all his Lyme patients suffer from one hormone imbalance or another…thyroid, adrenals, gonad, etc.

[JohnnyMax]

Thank you Maz! I am trying to soak up as much knowledge about this stuff as I can, any info you can point me to is greatly appreciated. These look like some good info that I will try to use to my advantage.

I think my test level had dropped off just before I felt this coming on since things were a bit heavier that they used to be, but since I have readjusted my diet, that is not the case anymore. I had my testosterone checked, with other hormones last year by my GP as part of my physical at it was high (660ng) for my age group, so will make sure the doc checks it next week to compare.
From what I have read, it seems men have a chance of remission early in the disease, so maybe the test thing and AP can push it over the edge in my favor. One can only hope.

[Maz]

@JohnnyMax wrote:

I had my testosterone checked, with other hormones last year by my GP as part of my physical at it was high (660ng) for my age group, so will make sure the doc checks it next week to compare.

From what I have read, it seems men have a chance of remission early in the disease, so maybe the test thing and AP can push it over the edge in my favor. One can only hope.

John, did your doc check blood levels or saliva levels of testosterone? As per the study above, I think the saliva testing is necessary to check for “free” unbound levels of hormones. Blood levels may provide very different levels from saliva levels. Unfortunately, NY state has some weird laws about testing out of state, so you might need to find a reliable lab within NY that does saliva testing. Maybe your doc will know. It’s easy to do…you just spit in a tube and mail it off to the lab. If checking other hormones, like cortisol, you will have to spit into the tube 4 times throughout the day to check for “diurnal” cortisol levels. Adrenal dysfunction (aka adrenal fatigue) can be a real problem for rheumatics.

Yes, it does seem that men generally have a less tricky time of it when it comes to turning around their rheumatic disease than women do – hey, lucky you, eh? I’m coming back as a man next time, but have decided I won’t be getting a rheumatic disease! 😆 Folks who catch their disease early also have an easier time, especially milder cases. 🙂

[JohnnyMax]

Maz,

Mine was the standard blood workup, no saliva. He ran just about everything he could. I know NYS is crazy about sending specimens in the mail, not even a doctor can do it, guess it is for safety reasons, you really don’t know what kind of infectious disease someone unknowingly has. If I could, I would send out specimens on a regular basis to keep tabs on things. I know Life Extension has a bunch of tests they can run, but not for NYS residents, too bad.

Funny thing, when I compared my ESR & CRP from last year to the current one, they were exactly the same, despite the issue I am now having. ❓

[diddy]

Hello everyone,
Thank u very much for the answers. I have been researching every single tip you gave me, and have actually learned so much stuff I never knew about my condition.
What I forgot to mention is that I’m a physician too, freshly graduated, I just got my clinical nutrition diploma. My father is also a physician and acupuncturist and he is the one who did the researches for me because I was severely depressed back then to do anything for myself. Thank God it’s all in the past now.

Those kind of symptoms are highly suggestive of Palindromic Arthritis which, typically, affects the larger joints and often uni-lateral (versus RA which tends to affect the smaller ones and is bi- lateral (both sides).

Well,first I’d like to Thank u Lynnie for the invaluable info you gave me about Palindromic Arthritis , I read about it and was really shocked, I’ll tell you why.
In my first year of symptoms I was serologically negative (RF

[PhilC]

Hi Diddy,

In my experience, there is no “best” nutritional treatment. Instead, there are many things (e.g., dietary changes; minerals, vitamins, and other dietary supplements, etc.) that may be helpful, and the combination of all these different things can help people recover.

I see that you are on a dairy-free and gluten-free diet. Something else that may also be helpful is avoiding all nightshade vegetables and all foods that contain them. They are: eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers of all kinds (e.g., cayenne, chili peppers, paprika, pimento, green peppers, bell peppers, sweet peppers, etc.). Foods that typically contain nightshade vegetables are catsup/ketchup (of course), barbeque sauce (of course), salad dressing, “spice,” and mayonnaise (usually contains paprika). A few brands of mayonnaise do not contain paprika, so reading a bunch of labels can sometimes pay off.

Some additional reading material:
The “No Nightshades” Diet

Phil

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
- Albert Einstein

[Maz]

@diddy wrote:

Thank you Maz for the generous offer, Unfortunately, traveling is not an option for me at the moment, so I’d definitely benefit from consulting doctors abroad, as Egyptian rheumatologists have failed me over and over again. Therefore, if anyone can help me contacting an AP doctor, I’ll be overjoyed.

I’ve decided to continue using the antibiotics with my meds, although the two regimens are against each other and there is a possibility of drug interaction between doxycycline and MTX that’d increase the toxicity of MTX. however I don’t think that applies for low , interrupted doses of doxycycline.

Hi Diddy,

It’s great to have you here and glad you found us. As you’re a physician, you can probably teach us a thing or two, as time passes! I will send you Dr. S’s contact info in a PM (private message), which you can retrieve by clicking above beside your User Control Panel where it says (1 new message). I think you’ve posted 3 times now, so should have access to the PM system (a spam-preventative measure).

You might find the following study helpful in light of your concerns regarding taking doxycycline with methrotrexate. Studies were run here in the US on RAers using doxy in combo with mtx

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=o’dell+methotrexate+doxycycline

“CONCLUSION:
In patients with early seropositive RA, initial therapy with MTX plus doxycycline was superior (based on an ACR50 response) to treatment with MTX alone. The therapeutic responses to low-dose and high-dose doxycycline were similar, suggesting that the antimetalloproteinase effects were more important than the antibacterial effects. Further studies to evaluate the mechanism of action of tetracyclines in RA are indicated.”

Many folks here are already on commonly-used immune-suppressants when starting AP and the rheumatologist, Dr. T., who ran the MIRA trials commented about this here:

https://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/education.display/display_id/508.html

“Clearly minocycline can provide adjunctive therapy for RA. In other words, minocycline
can be combined with any other available agent. There are no exceptions! Examples
include Plaquenil, methotrexate, Arava, anti-TNF compounds like Enbrel & Humira
and the new intravenous drug, abetacept (Orencia). Decreased doses of one or both
agents may help to avoid gastrointestinal side effects. This regimen usually reflects
a desire to obtain additional improvement or to gradually convert to the safer drug,
minocycline. Examples include 1. Not having to increase the dose of methotrexate and
2. By increasing the dose of minocycline additional improvement and /or stability may
be gained. Perhaps use of two oral drugs might preclude the necessity for an injectable
and more expensive drug. Obviously judging the net effect of either drug is difficult or
impossible. The same impasse may arise if a clinical or laboratory side effect occurs.”

Full anti-bacterial effects of doxy or mino likely won’t be achieved while on immune-suppressive drugs, as tetracyclines are bacteriostatic (limit growth and reproduction of targeted bugs, but don’t actually kill them) and require a functioning immune system to go in and clean up compromised susceptible microbes. With higher dosing there may be more in the way of bacteriocidal action, but this isn’t really helpful in lower doses, which is probably why those on mtx or other DMARDs and biologics generally do better when on the Harvard Protocol (100mg mino/doxy BID), as they’re receiving more in the way of immune-modulating effects of the tetras. Ultimately, the goal of most APers is to get off the other drugs eventually, so when weaning slowly from the other drugs, some rebound and break-thru herxing may then occur. Then, when disease symptoms are stabilized, folks will try to lower to pulsed, maintenance dose. Of course, response is unique to each individual and there are some instances where folks can’t tolerate the higher daily dosing even while on DMARDs or biologics, but generally speaking the Harvard Protocol seems to be more beneficial in these instances until off the other drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriostatic

Diddy, thought you might find the following article in the RBF Fall 2010 newsletter rather interesting in light of the fact that you are in Egypt. Seems the ancient Nubians were using naturally-made tetracyclines long before these were being pharmaceutically manufactured!

“Ancient Nubians Took Antibiotics?”

https://www.roadback.org/emailblasts/ebulletin_fall10.html

[Author]

Posts