If you suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, it may pay you to study if you have any food allergy. An article "Rheumatoid Arthritis and Food: a Case Study" in the respectable British Medical Journal describe the ordeals of a 38 year old woman. Ms X suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for 11 years. The joints of her arms, legs and hips were severely inflamed and swollen. She had no had grip and can barely move without excruciating pain. All the modern medicine - salicylates, non steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, gold, penicillamine, predisone, gave little relief, in fact, made her sicker. When the rheumatologists at Hammersmith Hospital, London, found out about her cheese cravings, they wondered if her troubles could be due to a food allergy, and persuaded her to cut out all dairy products. Her joint swelling and morning stiffness lessened within 3 weeks, and disappeared over the next few months. Then one day she ate some dairy products by mistake, and 12 hours later, the arthritic symtoms returned. The doctors also did a confirming "challenge" test in which, after she was free from the disease for 10 months, she delibrately ate 3 pounds of cheese and drank 7 pints of milk over 3 days. Within 24 hours, the rheumatoid arthritis symtoms were back.
This was not an isolated case of food allergy causing rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Ronald Williams reported in another case in the British Medical Journal a patient who had active rheumatoid arthritis for 25 years. Taking azathioprine and soluble asprin, even a plasma exchange, didn't help. It turned out she was allergic to corn. When she excluded all corn from her diet and improved dramatically within 1 week.
Likely allergen that you may want to look into are cereal, diary products, meat, Omega-6 vegetable oil. Food that may help are fatty fish, vegetables, ginger.
You are what you eat: healthy food choices, nutrition, and the child with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. (includes posttest)(Continuing Education Series: ... Update) : An article from: Pediatric Nursing [HTML] (Digital)
Conquering Arthritis: What Doctors Don't Tell You Because They Don't Know: 9 Secrets I Learned the Hard Way (Paperback) Food Your Miracle Medicine
1 comment:
Great post and I hope many people suffering from RA read and re-read it. My wife has RA and now is absolutely pain free - how? Simply removed dairy from her diet. It seemed to be the main player. However, all people people with RA may not be allergic to milk - but they may be allergic to some food. I highly highly recommend that one with RA go to their doctor and receive a food allergy test.
I wrote a post about this and you can view it here -
http://www.healthegoods.com/2005/07/rheumatoid-arthritis-treatment-using.html
The post has some pretty useful info in it - along with published research studies showing the link between diet and rheumatoid arthritis.
In health,
Ben
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