Anyone Else Want To Rant? Join In

I didn't bother with a dietician after my first visit and she didn't give me one bit of "printed" out guidelines I hadn't already found online. Basically, I eat foods that are said-to-be anti-inflammatory. But nothing wrong with just following a dietician

 

I think I posted this on another thread, but I found at least four items that were on one anti-inflammatory website's "Good to eat" and on another's "Avoid." So I know nothing. I stopped looking after that.

Let's take any particular item that one site says to avoid. How long do I avoid it to know if it affects me or not? A couple of days? A week? A few weeks? I don't have enough years left to live to do all that experimentation. Somebody has to know more about this than I do, or of how to set up some sort of plan to follow.

 

@Bruce Andrew are you trying to figure out if an anti-inflammatory food is working?

 

I'm my own guinea pig, don't mind that as much as I mind being someone else's. I have yet to take any prescription that didn't make me have a negative reaction. I wouldn't hesitate to take an opiate though if it stopped severe pain I was having, side-effects or not. In the meantime, I tried changing my diet and had no negative effects, and I have no apparent arthritis, that I was diagnosed with. At least none that causes pain like yours has. I just have one rule for myself and that is if a doctor diagnosis me with something, I'll try alternatives to drugs first. That is just for me, not telling anyone else what they should do. I don't claim to have answers for others just what works for me

 

Well sure. Which site/plan to follow? -- they contradict each other.

If I avoid "X," how/when do I know if it helps or hurts? If I think it helps, how do I know if it's that or if it's something else I'm doing/not doing in my life? (cause and effect). To learn anything at all, you can only change one variable at a time.

Rinse and repeat for every other food item out there.

 

I think probably the best way is if it actually makes you feel better, then it is probably reducing inflammation. If you want to quantitate it, you can get a CRP done as a baseline, then repeat it after you do something that you perceive as an improvement. There are many inflammation markers out there, but CRP is the cheapest. If you are one who has arthritis under treatment, you may already know your baseline. There is also an hsCRP available, but it is for determining inflammation in asymptomatic people, so if you have arthritis or something similar, it is too sensitive to be useful.

 

Thanks Don.

What is "it"? The pain started in early April in my wrist and shoulder (tendonitis) gradually got worse, and stabilized in probably early-mid July. Why? Nobody knows. The orthopedist said that osteo-arthritis doesn't usually come on suddenly, but it can.

I took CBD caps for a month or so, took this, took that, the pain very slowly eased but by then had spread to both hands, both shoulders, legs, knees, and feet. By the end of August it was noticeably improving. It continued to ease until sometime in October and has stayed there since. Overall, every problem point is probably 80-90% okay now, but I'm still on a low dose of meloxicam.

I started cutting back on refined carbs in September sometime. So how many variables were there in my life over a several-month span? Impossible to know. Which ones affected the pain, and which didn't? Did none of them? Did it just run its course, having nothing to do with anything I tried to do about it? Who knows, my GP told me in August (?) that the pain can come back anytime.

I had a blood test in April when I saw an ortho-guy to determine inflammation markers, among other things (ruled out rheumatoid arthritis). I asked my GP about that a few weeks ago if it should be checked again. He said something like the CRPs don't tell them anything other than it confirms inflammation, and there is no treatment based upon those numbers.

He didn't think diet had much to do with it, but who knows.

So: Pain starting suddenly on April 4, gradually increasing to being almost unbearable (meloxicam and acet were a big help) and stabilized in July. It started receding, but so slow that it wasn't even really noticeable for over a month, and continued to slowly recede for 3 months.

Other than taking meloxicam, which caused noticeable improvement in 24 hours or so, there doesn't seem to be any way of pinpointing anything else. I can live with it now (in April, May, June I didn't think I could) but am searching for a way to get rid of it. There probably isn't any way, but a dietician seems to be my last hope; somebody who has an educated idea on what to avoid, etc. -- unlike websites which contradict each other. There seems to be "more to the story" here, but I don't know what it is.

Wow, this was only going to be a paragraph or so. If you made it all the way through, congrats!

 

Yvonne, I do remember reading about pineapple being possibly helpful some months ago, so I started drinking the juice but don't anymore. The only way I could drink enough to make any difference would be with Pina Coladas, lol.

I don't know if you can get through my tome above, but I can live with the arthritis/tendonitis (inflammations) as it is now, along with a low-dose of meloxicam.

I enjoy eating too much to radically change my diet -- life would not be that enjoyable if that was the only option. It would be nice to find a few things I could change though. I've been eating fewer carbs but don't notice any difference.

 

I have known rheumatologists who treated based on CRP levels. They used it as a guide to inflammation, especially for the RA. They would differ with your Ortho, but that was years ago so perhaps that is no longer the standard of practice, but it makes sense to me to do something like that. Those guys would slowly increase your Meloxicam until your CRP neared the reference range. As you may realize, I have become a fan of the Integrative Medicine docs. Not all of them are good, but they are open-minded by definition, and one did my wife a lot of good after struggling with conventional medicine for decades. If you think it is food-related, you could start with an elimination diet and slowly add food back into your diet to see what, if anything causes the issue. If you think it might be circulation-related, try one of those compression braces (like those copper thingies shown on TV). I had pain and simple compression worked wonders. with no drugs at all.

 

@Yvonne Smith do you have trouble with cracking lips when you eat all the raw pineapple?

 

I agree with the experimentation, that is what I have to do, or had to do. Now, after especially the last year, I know what I can eat and what I can't. I will say this again, as I have many times to my friends, and that's that getting Type 2 Diabetes diagnosed was a blessing for me. Once I dropped the high-carb diet, and entered into eating healthy fats, including saturated (boy will I hear it on that one I'm sure ) I honestly feel atleast 10 years younger. I'm really not bragging, I just had no idea how much I could control myself just through diet alone. All I wanted was those Hbaic numbers to come down!! Lots of side benefits for sure. I do take just a handful of supplements like Magnesium. It helps with any nerve issues (most likely nerve pain as well) my essential tremor, leg and foot cramps at night, and definitely my sleep. It's been a year now since I started being super vigilant on what I eat, so no, going the way I've gone is not easy, and not a quick fix.

 

Something we do on my health forum, is tell eachother what we "are" eating, what do we drink, any medications etc. Our lifestyle (so to speak) can tell us a lot about why we may have symptoms. I don't know about you Bruce, but I've never had a conventional doctor ask me what I eat. I'm always asking do I drink alcohol, or smoke cigarettes, but never what else am I putting into my body.

I can understand not wanting to talk about that on a public forum, but you can find a lot of info (which you have to weed it out and decide for yourself) online about certain causes of ailments being the food we eat, or the things we drink. Now we could get really deep and try to buy all organic, but who can even be sure of the soil that's grown in. The battle rages on, that's for sure I'll add one more thing, which you may not eat at all, but imo, sugar is my enemy, and that includes foods the break down into sugar. That doesn't mean I can't eat any vegetables, which also have carbohydrates, I just have to keep them limited. I eat about 30 or less grams of Carbohydrates a day.

 

@Denise Happyfeet buying organic in the grocery store doesn't guarantee much except perhaps no GMO products. That is why I encourage people to visit farmer's markets, as there you may be able to meet the actual growers and get a feel for how they grow and what their soil is like. Commercially-grown produce is almost certainly grown on depleted soil. They add NPK and a few other things, but things like Mg, B, Mg, Zn, Se are usually very unless they fertilize with kelp or some other expensive product. Livestock growers will be able to tell you what kind of supplements they have to use to keep their animals healthy if they a re grown on local products and that will give you a clue as to what elements your local soil is naturally low on.