Reducing RA and Sjogrens symptoms with diet changes, swapping out inflammatory foods, Autoimmune Drugs

One of the hardest things you'll ever do is change your diet especially if it's FOREVER. Grocery stores have unlimited choices of deliciousness. It's so simple to rip a bag open of fluffy goodness, carve into a gallon of ice cream or pop a ready made dinner into the microwave. Add on the ease of driving up to a window and ordering a quick lunch and you basically are eating everything you shouldn't. May be you eat a few healthy things during the day, but top it off with sugar, caffeine, and salt to get a burst of happiness. I've whittled down to an afternoon cup of coffee and dessert to get my daily fix. I feel like I've come a long way but still am searching for that trigger that keeps my body inflamed!

A pot of health at the end of the rainbow.

Living with rheumatoid arthritis for 20 years has become second nature. It's not something I've been fortunate to kill off but I have controlled it by taking various drugs. Not taking drugs is not an option for the level of disease activity that I have. I also suffer from another auto-immune disease, Sjogrens, which actually is worse than RA. An absolutely annoying disease that requires you have water and eye drops on hand 24 x 7. My optometrist asked me If I had to use eye drops once or twice a DAY! I really didn't think she was serious, in a DAY, the question should have been once or twice every 30 minutes! I absolutely panic if I don't have both of these objects on hand. A royal pain in the A**. Superstar tennis player Venus Williams has Sjogrens. You may have noticed how she has trimmed down and is back on the court. Her vegan diet has reduced all symptoms! Amazing! Proof in the pudding that diet most certainly can play a role.

A little taste of my gardens on Forsythia Hill.

When I first developed my autoimmune diseases, diet was mentioned but not as accepted of a treatment like it is today. If you can not figure out your diet trigger I highly recommend you not wait too long to get on some sort of drug. I applaud anyone that is lucky enough to be able to control this disease without drugs and initially I tried the grape diet (read my first blog on this topic) and all sorts of recommended herbal concoctions. Never finding anything that could stop the pain like drugs. You can say it's just a way for the drug manufacturers to make money and a host of other conspiracy theories but the truth of the matter is that without drugs I have zero quality of life, I can not move, garden, hike, lift, or do anything that brings me joy (other than eat). I take drugs to have a quality of life. Long term your joints will become permanently twisted due to the inflammation. To protect joints drugs stop the inflammation but my goal has always been to get off the drugs. It's my own fault for not taking diet change seriously. I've toyed with it for years. For me, diet change is one of the hardest things but in retrospect, what I've changed so far as not been as horrible as what I imagined.

Raspberries, lower in sugar and easy to grow!

If you have a busy schedule, it's not going to be easy to just go cold turkey. Pick something you can easy swap out and DO IT TODAY! I started with dairy. I'm not 100% on the dairy removal front but my biggest consumption was milk and yogurt. I don't miss either. Yogurt was really hard but I ended up substituting just a little of my neighbors beehive honey on my oatmeal instead of the yogurt. Done, gone, don't miss it. Flavored yogurts are your enemy - Dairy + Sugar = Highly inflammatory. Honey is a sugar so tread lightly and support a local hive!

~ Rebecca



   

Living with RA Anti-inflammatory Lifestyle Diet Changes

Entertainment when I feel bad! Black-throated Green Warbler.

Living with RA, Rheumatoid Arthritis, for 20 years has been a roller coaster. No day is exactly the same. Medications have kept my arthritis controlled for the majority of the time but mental or physical stress can cause the beast within to awaken. For the last 2 years we've been tackling an extensive home renovation project, my husband and I doing all the finishing work. What sets off my arthritis is the frustration I feel when I can't do something. I'm not a quitter or a non-starter and this is problematic for those suffering with RA. Knowing your physical limits is the first step in managing this disease. If I sit and do nothing I generally feel pretty good, it's when you have to DO something prolonged that your body reacts to and often stops you in your tracks.

Down the garden path when I feel blue.

The second step is to try different diet protocols to determine if certain foods are causing excessive inflammation in your body. It's sounds simple, stay clear of inflammatory foods. Depending upon what you read, this can vary greatly for those suffering with RA. For years I've heard to not eat  nightshade family plants such as tomato, eggplant, and potato. I've not been strong enough to never eat salsa, tomato sauce or heaven forbid potatoes!

When I initially was diagnosed back in the 1990s and my pain was so great that i could only sit and stare at the wall (seriously, my brain felt fried and everything hurt) out of pure desperation I tried a grape diet. Basically you just eat broth and grapes for days on end to see if you can stop the pain. It seemed like I did stop the pain but i wanted to eat my arm off. I was starving and the very first thing I added back caused all the pain to return. I recall it to be a grapefruit. I was more miserable not eating than living with the pain, I went hog wild and ate everything and anything I could get my hands on!

Anthony finishing my garage home office.

During that time, working outside the home  encouraged poor eating. Mountain Dew was my favorite beverage and often eating lunch out with coworkers meant eating junk. I am fortunate to work from home so can better control what I eat. I've not had a soft drink habit for longer than I can remember and fast food is a luxury not the norm. Get rid of high sugar, processed junk food first and foremost. Single serve drinks and flavored yogurts are generally bad as they contain excessive sugar because that makes it taste good!

Next draw down or eliminate inflammatory foods such as dairy and meat. I've been drinking coconut based carton beverages for years. When I read there is a different protein in dairy cows most typically raised in the US that is cancer encouraging, that was reason enough for me. I've also been a lacto-vegetarian in general for many years. Milk substitute beverages can be swapped for milk in all recipes that I've made without any change. The only different is they don't taste as good as a tall glass of milk, something I've not consumed for many many years, fake or real. I was attacked by seed ticks causing me to inherit another illness, Alpha-gal, so not eating meat has been easy - eat meat, throw up and break out in hives all over my body! I can still have fish which I continue to eat as it is one of the best anti-inflammatory items you can buy.

Gaze at the gardens, Bumblebees on Fall pink Sedum.

Focusing on small diet changes for the last 10 years has seemed to keep my health pretty good and my RA calm up until the last year. It seemed as if my medicine was not working and my doctor concluded that I needed to stop swinging a hammer, sheet rocking, and pulling electrical wires to improve my condition. In his words, you have a disease that you have to manage or you will feel bad. I can't just go all out, no matter what my brain says! Because I've not been able to get back to my old feel good level by simply "behaving" I'm going to look at my diet and try to figure out if there is a food that is aggravating my condition.

In my next blog post I'll talk about CBC oil and my struggles to make it on a Paleo, no coffee, gluten free diet. Yikes. This sounds impossible! May the force be with me.

~Rebecca