Diet and alternative therapies?

keesrotten

Anyone had any luck controlling arthritis with diet or alternative therapies like copper/magnetic bracelets, charms/cures, aquapumture (My spelling is terrible) etc???

AmandaJones

Diet can’t cure, but it can make OA less painful. If you think a particular food may aggravate your arthritis, it can help to keep a diary of your food intake and symptoms. Over the time, you may have some idea about which food could be provoking symptoms. Discuss these results with your doctor or a dietitian.

I have no experience of copper bracelet or acupuncture. Acupuncture stimulates the parathyroid glands to produce the hormone that draws calcium out of bones; only in this case, the hormone works on the arthritic deposits. But that’s the theory. In reality, it is a much debated issue and each person is unique. Some people will respond to acupuncture, some will not.
Hope it helps!!!

Amanda.

dreamdaisy

They have no effect on auto-immune arthritis such as ours because the cause for those conditions are very different to the reasons behind OA. Diet helps to keep weight off so reducing stress on joints, supplements may help to ease the worse symptoms of OA but not reduce the pain, things such as acupuncture or TENs machines will provide temporary relief but no more.

Any form of arthritis is degenerative and progressive - the things we do will slow both but no more. DD

stickywicket

It's a sad fact that any incurable disease attracts spurious 'cures' like magnets to a magnetic copper bracelet, green-lipped mussel gonads to a herbalist, charlatans to the prospect of a quick buck. We are a rich hunting ground for those with good health and few scruples.

The key to identification is that all these wonder cures claim to be effective for 'arthritis' . They make no distinction between OA and the auto-immune types and why would they as that would exclude a huge proportion of their hoped-for customers?

There is no cure for any form of arthritis but some things can help with the pain – acupuncture, hydrotherapy, pilates, yoga. A good Mediterranean diet is recommended and exercise – I reckon you'll get plenty of that

keesrotten

Thanks for the replies. As you probably can see i have loads of questions and this is a really good place to get some answers. I would tend to agree with your views on these "miracle cures" but thought it would be interesting to know if anyone had any success with them.

Exercise isn't an issue for me, if anything i am getting too much. Too much weight isn't a problem either as i am currently only 9 stone 12 pounds, having lost approx 1 stone over the last month.

I was told to try cutting wheat, chocolate and dairy products out of my diet about 4 months ago to see if it would help ease the pains and cause me to be less tired. It didn't have any effect.

1 month ago i was told i was overrun with the yeast Candida. The worst case the lady had ever seen. At the time i was exhausted, had difficulty concentrating, could feel myself edging towards depression and had all the joint pains previously mentioned. I went on a no yeast, dairy, sugar, fruit, wheat, chocolate diet. All i eat now is fresh meat, vegetables, eggs, nuts and seeds.

The 1st week was hell. I felt like i was hit by a bus. I have a really sweet tooth and the cravings i had were immense. After that things started to improve. My head has gotten a lot clearer, i don't feel any form of depression, the fatigue has eased, but I still get really tired when i over do things or when my pains are bad. That is probably the PA.

Any way to cut a long story short, even with this restricted diet my pains are getting worse, so i don't think diet can help arthritis much. There are also times when i would be willing to kill someone for an ice cream or a chocolate bar!

Slosh

I hope the diet advice you were given was by a properly qualified dietician. Professionally, I work as a SENCO dealing with children with SEN and disabilities, I know of several cases where so called dieticians have put children on very restrictive diets, and made spurious claims for them without any valid tests being done. If you haven't already, please see your GP and ask for a referral and proper allergy testing. Apart from anything else if you are diagnosed with something like celiac disease you can get certain items on prescription/reduced prices.

I try to eat more oily fish, 5 a day etc but also allow myself the occasional treat.

LignumVitae

Changing your diet might help if you had a dietary related condition but you don't. Admittedly a diet of McDonalds probably wouldn't help but beyond a balanced diet and eating healthily there isn't much your diet will do for arthritis. Acupuncture does sometimes give me a bit of relief from muscle spasms beyond that, nothing much from the alternative world works. Arthritis Research have a publication looking into lots of alternative therapies and medications in terms of what helps for auto-immune arthritis and whys helps for OA. It's on their website, it gives you a clear understanding based on research so take a look if you want to know about a particular alternative and it might help you decide.

keesrotten

Ok thanks. Great answers as always. Meds, rest and reduced stress seem to be the main things to slow down the progression of arthritis.

Slosh

Reading this again to loose a stone in a month seems a lot. Don't forget that if you are doing a lot of exercise you need things like carbs to replace the energy. Several years ago my niece wrote to me concerned about how much weight she was loosing and explained she was doing a lot of exercise. I spoke to a friend who was a PE specialist and he stressed the danger of combining a lot of exercise with a strict diet.

Also some meds can have the side effects of reducing the appetite and causing weight loss. It might be worth discussing this with your GP.

In the meantime remember a little bit of what you fancy does you good.

Keren

Hi keesrotten,

I too have a type of inflammatory arthritis that would fall into the Undifferentiated Spondyloarthropathy category if it was one used by the NHS! (It's used in America). Basically, inflammation where all of my tendons insert into my bones, bad low back pain, heel pain, neck pain, the lot. Psoriatic arthritis is a member of the spondyloarthritis family. Anyhow, I also have an autoimmune liver disease which meant that taking anti-inflammatories long term wasn't a great option, so I too started hunting around for a diet. There's actually one that there is a LOT of anecdotal evidence for, called the Low Starch diet. See http://www.kickas.org/londondiet.shtml for an outline of it. In fact the KickAS forums are excellent (Ankylosing Spondylitis is, again, a spondyloarthritis).

As for me, I started it in May last year, and within a few days my low back pain disappeared. The tendon inflammation went away after about six months, and now I'm amazingly good. In fact I'd been feeling so good, I started wondering if I was better, so started eating starch again in small amounts, only to set off a flare! Hohum. It has absolutely given me my life back, and I know it's done for many others with spondyloarthritis.

Keren

BTW, I substitute fat and protein for the carbs I don't eat, and while I initially lost 2 stone (which I could afford to lose), my weight has plateaued.

keesrotten

Your right about the strict diet and the too much exercise. I really feel like i need to put some weight back on. My appetite is currently is really big and i am eating loads of healthy food (fish, brown rice, fresh meat & Veg etc), but i have cut out all the junk food which i was addicted to.

The idea is to starve the candida of the sugar and yeast which they require to survive and so far it seems to be working as i feel 10 times better than i did 6 weeks ago. However i still have the pains which we think are being caused by some form of arthritis.

Thank you for the diet recommendation Karen i will have a look at it. The condition which you have sounds quite like what i am feeling (feet and neck pains). If you spend too much time on your feet does the pain get worse and move to your ankles, knees and hips?? Also do you get any pains in your hands?

I have started taking Tramadol Hydrochloride which my GP prescribed and it helps to dull the pain and make work much more bearable.

celebrationb

Rhi I have oa in my knee, my friend I know does reiki and am getting 30 mins on Monday and have been told he will give me more treatment s. I had acupuncture for my trapped nerve it was good. Hope reiki works

Keren

Thank you for the diet recommendation Karen i will have a look at it. The condition which you have sounds quite like what i am feeling (feet and neck pains). If you spend too much time on your feet does the pain get worse and move to your ankles, knees and hips?? Also do you get any pains in your hands?

Hi keesrotten,

When I was at my worst, I had tendinitis/enthesitis everywhere, so standing for too long was awful - the pain in my knees made me feel sick. I also had tendinitis at the top of the outside of my thighs (is that what you mean by hips, or is it higher?), and pain in my hands - basically, I just had pain everywhere where tendons/muscles joined into my body - arms, hands, legs, feet, hands, ribs, all down my back, neck - everythingincluding on my head! I also have a separate condition that is causing osteoarthritis in my hands (that confused my doctors for a bit), but that's nothing to do with the inflammatory arthritis. It's a different kind of pain (sharp), rather than the burn of inflammatory pain.

Oh, and even when I was at my worst, my inflammatory markers were all completely normal, much to my frustration!

Hope you get things resolved,
Keren

Roadback

Hi Keesrotten

I have the same experience as Keren - my arthritis is heavily affected by diet.

Having studied the subject quite heavily over the last 22 years - I am of the firm belief that some autoimmune diseases are to a degree a misdirected reaction to something environmental. The AS london diet that Keren mentioned (low starch) as well as eliminating some often allergic foods primarily causes certain bacteria (in the case of AS the bacteria in question is Klebsiella) in the gut to diminish.

All of his is backed up by research by various published scientific studies - and is not quack therapy.

Similarly with RA - different bacteria have been studied as part of an environmental cause - and there are in fact studies that show that the make up of the gut bacteria change prior to the inset of RA - and also change at the time of flare ups. This might explain that some people find temporary relief from fasting - but then resume pain when going back to there previous diet. I have seen various muslim people on forums recently saying that there symptoms were greatly reduced during Ramadan.

Then there is the much maligned gluten free diet - although I would not claim that it would help everyone (as these disease are a lot more complex than just cutting out 1 food) - I would encourage people to look on the web for recent medical research from a Professor called Allesio Fasano - he has proven that gluten (specifically a protein called gliadin) causes intestinal permeability in all humans (not just celiacs) and this MAY be the cause of entry for some autoimmune reactions to bacteria (and other dietary proteins) that pass in to the blood stream.

Just to get technical for a second - there is a phenomenon called "epitope spreading" in all autoimmune diseases where the body starts to make antibodies against something environmental - but a weak immune system makes bad antibodies that starts to find other proteins as the enemy - eventually this causes a Chinese whisper effect with many protein being identified as "foreign" - then the body attacks itself as the proteins in those that get RA are similar to some bacteria (Proteus Mirabilis being one). This is shown by the rise of CCP that start to signal RA many years before symptoms start.

If your interested -the research related to a DNA protein called QKRAA that exists in the tissues of some arthritis sufferers and happens to be the same foreign protein on some bacteria that leak in to the body through the gut.

With psoriatic arthritis the bacteria tat has been studied as a potential culprit is streptococcus mutans - which is why sinus issues and jaw issues can be more prevalent.

No guarantees - but there is plenty of ignored dietary research out there - with proper peer reviewed medical studies - but it is not straightforward or economical to treat each of us with personalised treatments to identify what we are reacting to. It is easier to switch off the immune system.

Roadback

...sorry Keesrotten

Just one more thing I noticed in your post.

My understanding is that when candida and other bacteria "die off" it can exacerbate pains whilst die off is happening.

This is similar to the reaction that happens when people follow the Antibiotic Protocol - which some people resort to when standard medication fails.

There is a general perception that Antibiotics for some forms of arthritis are only used for mild forms - but there are some severe cases that fail medication that are termed "refactorary" that have found success with AP therapy. Which again shows that the driver of their disease was external and not truly auto-immune.

stickywicket

Roadback wrote:

All of his is backed up by research by various published scientific studies - and is not quack therapy..

Could you please give us the references so that we can check all these pieces of research for ourselves.

Roadback

Hi stickywicket

Am I allowed to post links? I don't want to upset the moderators.

stickywicket

The Mods will decide if they're not deemed acceptable.

Roadback

As requested by Stickywicket - here is some research from legitimate medical journal sites that support the role of arthritis being somewhat environmental. Diet affects gut bacteria - and there is a lot of evidence that gut bacteria balance and increased presence of certain bacteria - in association with intestinal permeability (aka leaky gut). I am aware that drugs work and are often needed - but this current direction of mainstream research sort of suggests that some of the "alternative" therapists were on the right track with gut - bacteria / candida association a long time ago.

This paper says regardless of being celiac - "In addition to bacterial exposure, we have shown that gliadin also affects the intestinal barrier function by releasing zonulin (35). This effect of gliadin is polarized, i.e., gliadin increases intestinal permeability" - it goes on to mention rheumatoid arthritis and AS

http://physrev.physiology.org/content/91/1/151

Slides 41 to 49 of this ArthritisResearch is a presentation for the suggested direction of research they will be following - and discusses the composition of gut bacteria in response to diet and impact on arthritic disease -


Edit: broken link removed - do try reposting this link
Mod B


Further bacterial links -

Republished in 2014 under 1 year ago -

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23992372

"Consequently, RA patients should be treated early with anti-Proteus antibiotics as well as biological agents to avoid irreversible joint damages."

Roadback

Reposted link as mod says that previous link was broken -

http://www.arthritisresearchuk.org/research/~/media/849B81B26285441DA25C0A044B1D5C72.ashx#page4

stickywicket

Blimey! I did languages but not that kind of language

Seriously, thanks very much for that, Roadback. I was severely limited in what I could grasp of it :oops: but I got enough to see that it might be an interesting route for research to pursue.

Fifty three years in, and with the RA part of my arthritis well-controlled by DMARDS, I'm not personally planning on changing anything. I chased up the dietary stuff in my early years and just got worse but this does look to have potential for future research along with genetically targeted meds. The future's looking a bit brighter for many

Roadback

Hi stickywicket

I agree it is technical :? - but i guess that this current direction of research is quite a long way from saying that diet makes no difference.

I am glad you are doing well on your dmards - hopefully some of this newer research will feed through in to drugs with less side affects.

So as you say future "meds" might come along - perhaps they will change the balance of the gut bacteria - and you never know they might even prescribe a diet change to Alter the balance of gut bacteria. There are meds in the pipeline to control intestinal permeability, and although developed for celiac - its called Larazotide - it is being discussed for other autoimmune diseases such as diabetes an RA.

In simple terms I think they are suggesting it is 3 things -

1) - A genetic susceptibility (ie hla-dr gene for RA, hla-dq for celiac, hla-b27 for AS)

2) - Too many foreign proteins (bacteria or sometime foods) that enter the body from the gut (or perhaps infection elsewhere in the body) - there are so many that the immune system is overwhelmed and cannot regulate the production of an accurate antibody.

Even in healthy people the body makes a range of antibodies in response to "attack" - but then cleans up the ones that do not exactly fit to the invader (this happens in the thymus). Cleaning up "inaccurate" antibodies uses up lots of our bodies resources - especially zinc and vitamin D - then the immune system becomes weak and starts to get bad at tidying up.

So it is not so much that it is making antibodies against our own joints and tissue - but rather leaving behind antibodies that should have been tidied up. For example the "bacterial" hypothesis for why RA affects small joints first is that the type of Collagen in the small joints carries a protein that is different to other tissue in the body - the protein shape is a similar match to particular bacteria.

3). Lastly it appears that a good balance of bacteria in the gut can help prevent 2) from happening by ensuring that the initial immune response to invader through the gut lining is more controlled - certain patterns of gut bacteria help the intestinal immune cells to mediate a response.

Take care

Keren

Hi Roadback,

I just wanted to say that I found your posts super helpful - I've never read anything about the whole molecular mimicry thing in layman's terms, so thank-you - things are clearer!

Keren