got crutches today

[Johnny Mac]

Sorry to hear your suffering mate. Get well soon. Isn't green lipped muscles good for this?

[FELINEGUITARS]

Ian
Both Gout and arthritis are caused by a buildup of Uric acid in the joints
I might recommend that you take a look at your diet and see what you can do to make it a lot more alkaline
Your body ph is like most of us in the West too acidic and the body has more difficulty in getting rid of acid toxins

Here is the first thing I came up with via google when I did a search
http://www.ionizers.org/antiaging.html

Excuse the source as it is obviously trying to sell you something, but the thinking behind it is pretty sound
Even starting the day by drinking fresh lemon or lime juice squeezed into lukewarm water can start to have an effect

Getting a lot more greens in your diet , kicking smoking, alcohol, coffee and red meat will all help
Initially (even if for just a few days) give up on meat, dairy, sugar and the other bad stuff listed above and get lots of salads, leafy greens and vegetable soup into yourself and see if it helps.

I only know this as i am looking into it myself for some joint injuries I am trying to help heal.
It should help , but has got to be better than heavy duty medication

[Kilby]

Errr, sorry what what may be perceived as a rant

Almost every single link connecting arthritis to uric acid comes back to this site (same for asthma too).

Arthritis isn't caused by uric acid unless you count "Gouty arthritis" which is actually regular Gout and nothing to do with arthritis. Asthma also has no connection to his theory as I would love it to so simple.

Theres more than a few "weasel words" in that link (actually misrepresentation is probably a better phrase) regarding cancer cells being acidic. Snake Oil seems to be a phrase which applys to that guy (sorry).

Yes indeed raised O2 concentrations will kill cancer cells but the same applys to regular cells too, it's just that many cancer cells are more sensitive, the same sensitivity to O2 concentrations applies to many bacteria (or indeed whole people under the correct conditions as any qualified diver will tell you.)

This is the main reason hospitals do no longer put premaure babys into O2 rich incubators as common practice.
As I also seem to remember O2 is one of the processes that white blood cells uses to kill invaders.

There is an alternate mindset which says you need to lower the oxygen in body tissue (thats partally what anti oxidants are about) http://www.alternative-doctor.com/anti-ageing/oxygen.html for a conflicting point of view.

Sorry for the rant but I hate misrepresentation (and Ioinizers.org is full of it). The only thing that was missing was the conspiracy theory regarding goverment, pharmacutical companys and healthare people

To pick up in part of Jonathans post, balancing your diet can work wonders for avoiding triggers or to prevent the build up an excess of things which we could well do without. As these can reach trigger levels over a course of time (without us being aware of the trigger in the 1st place)

Unfortunitely for us moderation in all things is the truely healthy option, but humans are not too good at moderation :(

In my case I have to be very careful about sulfites in red wine and beer as even one glass of the wrong beer or wine can cause me issues for days.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Thanks Kilby
I just trawled for info and came up with the source that as you said was misleading.
But I am glad that you said about moderation and balancebeing important

I am increasingly believing that we are somewhat out of balance - that our eating habits have moved way out of touch with where evolution has gotten with the human body.

That the kind of diet that we ate 50-100 years ago would suit us better - and that the Mediterranean diet that is so touted by health experts is a diet that remains relatively unchanged from centuries ago and is better suited to the human digestion - Fish, vegetables, etc rather than the processed and chemical foods that we are eating too much of.

Man was a hunter gatherer until a couple of thousand years ago when we started farming and that is hardly any time at all for the human genome to have altered in a way that would adapt to our present eating patterns

So returning to foodstuffs that are closer to what our paleolithic ancestors might have found and utilised might be beneficial.

That was the point that I was really trying to make

[Kilby]

Thanks Kilby
I just trawled for info and came up with the source that as you said was misleading.
But I am glad that you said about moderation and balancebeing important

I am increasingly believing that we are somewhat out of balance - that our eating habits have moved way out of touch with where evolution has gotten with the human body.

Firstly Jonathan I have to apologise as I sort of took off a bit, if somebody offers a quick fix then it's probably not true. Though now and again there is something that works, antibiotics being a cure for stomach ulcers being an example (that cost the pharmacutical companys 100s of millions in profits when the market for the likes of Zantac vanished overnight)

I'm not against so called alternative therapys, as I can personally vouch for stuff like St Johns Wort (for example) having a useful effect in my life.

However after watching the certain fraudsters try to make money from my parents in my fathers dying days, I'm a little like Nigel Powers regarding the Dutch (sorry not the best example to use)

I totally agree with you regarding balance and subscribe to the belief that too much of almost anything is bad for you. The Mediterranean diet being a prime example of balance (though I remember as a youth it was held to be bad for you as there was too much fat in it) so it shows how much scientests can get it wrong when they rely on common sense

As my father would have said abstenance is no form of self control, but sticking to a little of what you fancy is bloody hard work.

Now all I need is a cure for asthma and hair loss.

Anyway back to normal programming

HTH how are the joints now ?

[HTH AMPS]

I'm actually not feeling that bad - got another injection yesterday (into the foot this time) and that has helped lots.

My knee is better, but still stiff - there is quite alot of fluid still there which I think is gonna have to be drained off despite the consultant seeming to think it will simply disperse.

As for my diet, I've long since kicked a shiteety diet and starting to cook for myself was the key.

I don't smoke (urgh!), hardly drink (maybe a handful of pints in a month), red meat intake is negligable, eat my five-a-day-fruit and veg, fresh OJ to start the morning off (not from concentrate), plenty roughage to keep the bowels regular, fresh fish at least once a week.  I don't buy pre-packaged/frozen food ever - have you seen what goes into that shiteee?  anyway, meat is something I don't get much of these days since my girlfriend is veggie - that means everything I cook needs to be meat free.

Tea and fresh coffee are my vices however - I do like a fresh-ground coffee in the morning.

[PhilKing]

I went on a somewhat drastic detox earlier this year.  I went on to a 'raw' food diet (mainly vegetables, nuts and seeds) and cut out cafeine completely.  I've since moved on to a 'pescetarian' diet (no meat), but I haven't had cafeine for about 5 months now.  As someone who loved coffee this was a hard move.  There are a lot of books about the effect of caffeine on the body, but I think the thing that brought home the whole effect of it was trying to stop using it.  You have to stop gradually and ween yourself off of it, otherwise you get really bad headaches.  Anything that is having that effect on you can't be good.  So now 5 months later I am not tired, don't need caffeine to keep awake and generally feel fine.  Do I feel any better than when I was drinking 3 large cups of coffee a day?  I can't say there is a lot of difference, however I have noticed that I don't get the acid reflux (heartburn), that I used to get (I drank mainly black coffee), so I haven't had the urge to slip back

My nutritionist has said that a small cup in the morning sometimes will not really do any harm, but it is very easy for me to slip back then.  I will wait until I am in Italy before I drink any, and then will probably restrict it to one every couple of days and then it will be a macchiato!

[AndyR]

I'm exactly like you on the coffee Phil... except... I'm still drinking it...

I did the "stop drinking caffeine for a few days" test a couple of years ago, and yeah, big headaches... I cut down severely after that, but it's crept back up again.

HTH, I was trying to type a "get that caffeine down" reply earlier, but it just didn't feel right coming from me :lol:

Good to hear your making some kind of progress though, hope it keeps improving.

[dave_mc]

i'm not convinced by all this detox guff.

also, i'm not convinced that giving up meat is all that great of an idea.

of course, though, i agree that a large proportion of modern food is rubbish.

[38thBeatle]

I regret that I haven't had a chance to look at the book I mentioned the other day as I did not, after all, go to Mrs 38ths shop. I shall tomorrow though and see if there is anything useful I can pass on to you HTH.As I said before, it was written by a Nurse who had all but had to stop work and she researched and implemented a regime that enabled her to resume work. I seem to recall that her name is Margart Hills. From the sound of things you are not doing anything wrong but lets see what comes out of this book. Obviously I am a great believer in what I would prefer to refer to as complementary treatments but at the same time, I think you have to be open minded.

[HTH AMPS]

I'm open minded to anything that will improve my condition.  Today things are pretty bad and I'm hoping it's just a glitch rather than a decline back to the way I was last week (fingers crossed).  Things rarely change much day to day with reactive arthritis, it's very slow to react to treatment and for the symptoms to improve.

The real pig for me was that the really strong anti-inflamatories such as diclofenac worked a treat, all but cleared up my arthritis, but they don't agree with me as a long term treatment - I was borderline aneamic and had internal bleeding.

I'm on my 2nd drug now (the first ones turned me into a zombie) and they seem to be working according to my blood tests, will have to hang in there and see.  Worst thing is that typical time before you see any improvement is three months, so you can't really chop and change.

[Kilby]

sorry to hear that, hell 3 months a long time to wait

In the interim are you getting any time to keep yourself occupied (or is it ballsing everything up) ?

[hamfist]

The real pig for me was that the really strong anti-inflamatories such as diclofenac worked a treat, all but cleared up my arthritis, but they don't agree with me as a long term treatment - I was borderline aneamic and had internal bleeding.

That's a real bummer HTH. I'm much the same - can't even take aspirin or ibuprophen without having gastric problems (diclophenac is just a slightly stronger version of ibuprophen really). For those who can get on with them, they seem to be real good for RA.
 Hope the docs can find something that will get on top of the inflammation for you.

[38thBeatle]

That book was not there HTH-Mrs 38th only had one copy and that must have been sold (or knicked). She has a book on a diet for arthritis sufferers written by the same lady. I shall see if we can get another though the wholesaler has not been in touch of late and she has been trying to call him to make an order for some books.