RA Diet--frustrated!

L

LisaMarie

Cathlete
I'm hoping that someone out there can help me with this. My rheumatoid arthritis has recently started to flare up (diagnosed 6 months ago), so I've been spending a lot of time researching the effect of diet on RA.

I've read that some people find relief from eliminating gluten,corn, milk, eggs, meat, and beans. Huh?? What does that leave me eating other than fruit (but not citrus), fish, and veggies?

Is anyone here on such a restricted diet? Any thoughts on what I could eat given the restrictions? I'm all for trying it if it helps save my joints, but I'm at a loss for what I could actually eat.

TIA!
lisa
 
Hi Lisa,
I feel for you! Just a suggestion, but maybe try eliminating one food group to start with and see if that makes a difference. I think wheat and dairy are two biggies that might have the greatest impact. Others (with LOTS more knowledge than me) might have other suggestions, but those 2 are very common trigger food groups for inflammatory conditions from what I've read. Take care and HTH!

Jonahnah
Chocolate IS the answer, regardless of the question.
 
Hi Lisa:

My husband is a naturopathic physician and has been treating debilitating and chronic illnesses, including auto-immune diseases like RA for almost 20 years. Most if not all his patients who follow the prescribed diet and herbal supplements get well and are able to lead very normal lives. BUT it takes a lot of discipline and determination. You will be placed on a very restricted diet, but he will give you a list of foods to eat and foods to avoid. So at least you'll be very clear about that. You most definitely will not starve. Bonus- you will lose weight if you have some pounds to shed. If you are not willing to go 95% -100% on the program, your recovery may be minimal. Most people succumb to this type of treatment when they are sick of being sick! Really - this is no gimmick. I have seen amazing recoveries. Even as an acupuncturist, if my patients' conditions aren't improving quick enough, I'll refer them to him. Once they've started naturopathic treatment, my acupuncture treatments seem to work and hold so much better.

That is another option, you can try acupuncture for the pain first to see if that helps. But then again, improvements may be minimal or temporary if you do not change your diet. Among the foods you mentioned to avoid, beans, meat, fish and veggies are actually okay. But they must be free range. Fruits are not okay. I have actually done this program to fix my digestion. As a child I had tons of antibiotics and steroids for asthma and allergies. My digestion was damaged and I could no longer digest cooked foods. I did this program for a while and I am fine now - digestion works fine, no more asthma and allergies, except to foods I know I am allergic too.

If interested, email me and I can give you more information. He does do medical consultations all over the US and abroad.

Good luck to you whatever treatment or dietary changes you make for yourself. Edie
 
Thanks everyone for your thoughts! I think the first place I'll start is with dairy and then move on to grains (starting eliminating refined products NOW). Those are the foods that occassionally bother my digestive system, so it's quite possible those could be trigger foods.

Edie, do you have any website links you could send me to read up a little more? If so, could you pm them?

thanks again--
lisa
 
Hi Lisa-
Sorry, I do not have any website links to forward to you. And my husband's website is currently under reconstruction. He has a radio show where his patients sometimes come on to tell about their success stories with naturopathic medicine. Anyway - people will soon be able to listen to those shows on the web - there will probably be a show or two on RA.

Good Luck! Edie
 
LisaMarie,
You might want to try an elimination diet: for a period of time (2 weeks? maybe less) you eat only 'safe' foods that are known to not cause problems (rice is usually one of them). Then you gradually add other foods back in that may be problematic, with a 2-3 day window between each addition. That way, you can tell if a food is causing problems for you.

Also, some believe that plants from the nightshade family (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tobacco) can trigger arthritis symptoms.
 
>I've read that some people find relief from eliminating
>gluten,corn, milk, eggs, meat, and beans. Huh?? What does that
>leave me eating other than fruit (but not citrus), fish, and
>veggies?
>
And nuts and seeds, non-gluten grains, and 'pseudo-grains' which are actually seeds (quinoa, amaranth, millet, buckwheat).

If gluten corn and dairy are a problem, you'll have to be very careful with processed foods, as many of them contain them in some form or another, often under another 'identity'.

If this information is out there, I'm sure there are some cookbooks with recipes and meal-planning ideas that might address 'what to eat.'
 
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