Raw food help for arthritis/joint problems?

[b_light]

I just found out I have arthritis in my hands (I'm 23) and that I may develop it in many more joints (as I was born with very little cartilage surrounding my joints- benign hypermobility joint syndrome). I know of glucosomine and MSM and also cayenne pepper for pain, but does anyone know of any other remedies (particularly interested in food remedies) or preventative measures I could take? My husband is an avid rock climber, so when it gets warm he will show me "the ropes" so that I can strengthen my hands. Any advice at all would be great.

[Rawkinlocs]

b_light,

These threads may be of help to you:
http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8807&highlight=arthritis

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6776&highlight=rhematoid+arthritis

[truthseeker]

I've read some great things regarding this issue in Ed McCabe's book..."Flood Your Body With Oxygen".

[Guydiane]

My sister has arthritis really bad her knuckles were all swollen and her hands and feet were atarted to twist. She was on pain med. all the time. She went raw and within 3 weeks all her pain stated no more meds. After 3 months her knuckles are going down and she feels great.

[MoniDew]

I've heard that homeopathic Rus Tox is good for rheumatoid arthritis (which is the type I think you are describing, being so young. you may have osteoarthritis from the hypermobile joints, too. Did the doc say which kind? or both?)

[b_light]

Oh, sorry I didn't mention that, it's osteoarthritis

[Arky]

Ginger is a great anti-inflammatory, as is Turmeric.

Also ensure good Omega 3 intake, since this positively influences the anti-inflammatory function of certain types of prostaglandins within the body. However, please note that virtually all oils oxidise (at varying speeds, depending on their molecular structure and environmental exposure) rapidly and thus, increasing one's consumption of oils demands common sense in ensuring that one's intake of anti-oxidants is similarly increased, in order to prevent excessive oxidisation of the ingested oils. Excessive oxidisation in this manner could be totally counterproductive, generating large numbers of free radicals and, in the longrun, possibly even increasing, rather than decreasing, inflammation. Also note that high consumption of Omega 6 oils may (in certain circumstances) undesirably increase the body's inflammatory response, through promotion of other (inflammatory) prostaglandins. Blueberries, pomegranates, blackberries (AKA black raspberries) and citrus fruits are good sources of antioxidants, but citrus should be treated with cautious respect in cases of arthritis and consumed in moderation.

Also, although I do not suffer from arthritis per se, I do get stiffness in the joints of my right hand. This is VIVIDLY worsened if I eat unsoaked sesame seeds - I mean seriously, within 12hours of eating unsoaked sesame, it gets 10times (no exaggeration) worse! I presume this is due to build-up of phytic acid. Walnuts do the same to me, although to a lesser extent.

Mikhail Tombak has some interesting things to say on uric acid and it's wide-reaching complications and implications, if allowed to acrue inside the body. His books may be found on Amazon or here: starthealthylife.com/
His books have daft-sounding titles, and some people are quite disagreeable towards them, but I bought one with an open-mind and I must say that although they are poorly organised and contain some unorthodox thinking, I really enjoyed 'Can We Live 150 years?' and could barely wait for 'Cure The Incurable' to be published.

They are not expensive and I therefore consider them to be extremely worthwhile purchases. I recommend you read them because they offer a lot of suggestions for natural remedies to deal with arthritis and a whole host of other ailments, some of them very serious ailments indeed.


J.

[Gosia]

Yes, you can be helped!:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james25.htm

I suffered from joint pains before raw (but I never got myself diagnosed, so no label here). Sometimes it was so bad, I could not sleep at night. I used to cover my joints with home-made warmers (cut up socks etc), and this was helping.

Since raw, I have never suffered from this again! On those rare occasions, when I slipped back to cooked a big way, I could feel the problem coming back. I am quite sure that my joint pains were the direct result of toxicity associated with cooked foods.

All the best,
Gosia.

[debiannp]

[QUOTE=MoniDew]I've heard that homeopathic Rus Tox is good for rheumatoid arthritis

What is Rus Tox?

Sounds like you are very familiar with RA. My daughter 12 has polyarticular (many joints).
I am trying to go raw with her. Any ideas and sugestions appreciated. She is on Enbrel, Methorexate, Naproxen. I know they are all horrible but they do help keep the JRA in check.

Debi

[TA]

Hi b_light. I have osteoarthritis in my hands and spine. Exercising is vitally important as is keeping weight controlled...IMHO though, staying 100% raw is the best thing you can do both as treatment and prevention. There have been some posts here that mention staying away from the nightshade family of foods, such as eggplant and peppers so I'm doing that as well. It seems as long as I stay 100% raw and exercise daily, the pain and stiffness is negligible...and that is truly remarkable and a blessing.

HTH

Tricia

[BDraw]

agreeing with TA on the nightshade veggies. When I quit eating pototoes and tomotoes my finger and wrist joints quite bothering me. Raw definetely helped me too!

I know if I eat tomotoes (in any form) I will pay the price the next day, usually waking with sore finger joints.

Hope all of this helps you -- you are too young to be hurting!

[Arky]

Just on the nightshade issue, are you aware that the alkaloids, which are often implicated in joint troubles, are concentrated near the skins of these vegetables? If you care to experiment a little, it is possible that you may be able to eat some of the nightshade family if you first remove the skins. Then again, it may prove to make no improvement, but it's worth trying.


J.

[b_light]

Thank you all for all your help!

[divaitalia]

Hello, my name is Toni and I have been on this site very little and really like it. Last year I did the Master Cleanse for 12 days and my hands and all my joints felt so great. I continued on a 75% raw diet and that really helped. I feel so much better when I eat raw. Not all the problems with my joints as before.

[Lauradee]

sorry you have this. GLUCOSAMINE HCI WITH BOSWELLLIA is great formila contains a unique blend of building blocks for semi fluids that lubricate joints and helps support normal function of joints. it is reccommended by my sports injury dr/surgeon who has done a great job being a bone mender and fixer especialyy broken bones from sports injuries see i am typing and i woulnt be able to if he hadnot fixed my wrist and hand after a fall with screws and bolts a year so he knows what he is talking about i still havbe trouble but it's getting better. goood luck.

laurs

[Arky]

Looking back over this thread, I realise how unbelievably remiss I was to neglect to mention probably THE single-most important thing (IMHO) for good health and for maintaining (and achieving) a pain-free skeletal system. That thing is organic, mineral-rich, dark-leafy greens. We all know they are healthy things to include in the diet, but I find the incredible contribution dark green leafies can make to superior health, and recovery from ill-health, to be a conclusion that reiterates itself tens times more than any other single dietary element, both in personal experience and in quite extensive reading.

I also believe it is NO coincidence that one of the first things to be abandoned (or at least reduced to a minimum, proportionally) by those following a SAD diet is precisely these dark greens, and that arthritis is absolutely RIFE amongst Westerners following a greens-deficient diet. Weston Price observed that natives on many continents who began to alter their diets negatively, due to Western influences, often made full recoveries (notably from arthritis) when going back to their indigenous whole-foods diets, which (amongst other factors) invariably included a large proportion of bitter dark greens leaves (the Innuit people excepted, obviously!). The SAD diet abandons the very notion of 'bitter' as healthy, and instead extolls the virtues of (calcium-leeching) sugar and artificial sweeteners, bad not only in themselves, but also in their polar-opposite steering of the tastebuds away from health-giving bitter, mineral-rich greens.

David Wolfe is one of the few authors who seems to fully acknowledge how powerful dark greens are, and how vital they are. Even many raw-foodists do not include large-enough quantities of these, often leaning too heavily on fats and/or non-green raw imitations of SAD foods.

I myself suffer from joint pain, primarily in my hips and knees, and I am in no doubt that dark-green leafies are the foremost means of alleviating, and hopefully, in the longrun, overcoming my symptoms.

May I also urge you te read Truthseeker's post (No.17) in the following thread, where, amongst other points, she provides a great smoothie recipe for skeletal healing:

http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5127


J.

[Old Fashioned Oats]

Hello, I would like to add my 2 cents worth on the arthritis issue. I have arthritis in my right shoulder, sometimes it had been so bad it was dibilating. So much so I could not raise my arm or use it. I acquired an older book on juicing and in it it suggested the juice of celery would help with arthritis. I tried it by juicing it in with my regular vegetable juice. I have been pain free ever since adding celery juice to my diet. If you have a juicer you may want to try this. I use 1/2 of a large stalk celery.

:D

[Arky]

That's interesting. I read that celery seed is good for gout (as are cherries, apparently, which intrigues me all the more because I understand cherries are a member of the Nightshade family (see earlier post), which is a 'nice' little paradox...:)). The book I read this in was Jean Carper's 'Miracle Cures', by the way.


J.

[Jackie1995]

I've started adding 2 stalks of celery to my morning green smoothies, and must remark that they add a very interesting taste to the mixture.

Didn't know about the benefits for arthritis sufferers (I'm one, but it's very rare lately since I'm usually high raw) but I'm glad I've started adding it!

Also, part of my smoothie recipe always calls for raw ginger (I have noticed the chunks of ginger are getting bigger and bigger lately...I can't get enough of that flavor!)

[Gosia]

Scientific evidence for:

1)Acta Physiol Hung 1999;86(3-4):171-80
Vegan diet in physiological health promotion.
Hanninen O, Rauma AL, Kaartinen K, Nenonen M. Department of Physiology, University of Kuopio, Finland.
Abstract:
We have performed a number of studies including dietary interventions and cross-sectional studies on subjects consuming uncooked vegan food called living food (LF) and clarified the changes in several parameters related to health risk factors. LF consists of germinated seeds, cereals, sprouts, vegetables, fruits, berries and nuts. Some items are fermented and contain a lot of lactobacilli. The diet is rich in fiber. It has very little sodium, and it contains no cholesterol. Food items like berries and wheat grass juice are rich in antioxidants such as carotenoids and flavonoids. The subjects eating living food show increased levels of carotenoids and vitamins C and E and lowered cholesterol concentration in their sera. Urinary excretion of sodium is only a fraction of the omnivorous controls. Also urinary output of phenol and p-cresol is lowered as are several fecal enzyme levels which are considered harmful. The rheumatoid arthritis patients eating the LF diet reported amelioration of their pain, swelling of joints and morning stiffness which all got worse after finishing LF diet. The composite indices of objective measures showed also improvement of the rheumatoid arthritis patients during the intervention. The fibromyalgic subjects eating LF lost weight compared to their omnivorous controls. The results on their joint stiffness and pain (visual analogue scale), on their quality of sleep, on health assessment questionnaire and on general health questionnaire all improved. It appears that the adoption of vegan diet exemplified by the living food leads to a lessening of several health risk factors to cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Rheumatoid patients subjectively benefited from the vegan diet which was also seen in serum parameters and fecal analyses.

2) From http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2002/sep/osteoporosis

Fruit and veg message backed
Monday, 16 September 2002
One of the largest studies of diet and bone health in the world has underlined the Food Standards Agency advice on eating a healthy diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables. The research, commissioned by the Agency and involving more than 3,000 Scottish women, suggests that fruit and vegetables may help slow the onset of osteoporosis.

The researchers looked at women at different stages of the menopause, some of whom were taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT), recorded their intake of particular nutrients and gave them scans to measure their bone density at hip and spine.

The results indicated a possible link between eating fruit and vegetables and stronger hip bones in women before and around the time of menopause.

Osteoporosis is a major health problem that results in pain, loss of mobility and independence for many people. Bones become so fragile that they fracture easily. Bone health is particularly important for women around the
menopause because changes in hormone levels, particularly oestrogen, accelerate bone loss.

Around three million people suffer from osteoporosis in the UK. A third of women over 50 years of age will suffer a fracture because of it and one in 12 men.

The study also suggests there may be a link between the amount of vitamin D that women consume and bone density in post-menopausal women who are not on HRT. A major source of vitamin D is sunlight but diet is important, particular when women have low exposure to the sun owing to, for example, cultural reasons or because they live in less sunny
parts of the country, such as Scotland where this study was carried out.

The apparent protective effect of fruit and vegetables could be due directly to the nutrients or it is possible that the alkaline salts produced when they are digested are having an effect. These might help to counteract the
acid salts that are produced by other foods such as meat and cheese. So the alkalinity generated by the fruit and vegetables could prevent the need for alkaline salts to be released from bone and so maintain the bones' strength.

The Agency is commissioning further research to investigate these possibilities.


Gosia.