Arthritis or something else?

[Faye]

I would like to have suggestions from anyone who has arthritis about what works for them. I am not even sure arthritis is the problem but whatever it is, it hurtslike crazy. The problem is my left elbow. About 5 or 6 weeks ago it just started hurting. Really, a terrible aching. I ve only had a slight problem with arthritis in my clavicle joint before and found out I can't take arthritis medicine. I just worry about it being something besides arthritis. I guess that is normal after having cancer. I need natural remedies or food remedies since I can't take the meds. Any adcice?

[candy]

could be a pinched nerve there too faye.

Ibrypophen. ( spelling) something like advil or aleve will help to reduce the swelling and rest.

If it is arthritis. the aleve will help with the joint swelling pain on a day to day basis and you should be on cluclosemine ( again spelling) something like
ostio biflex. That will really help after about a month.

My son is a Orthopedic Surgeon who sees a lot of arthritis patients. This aleve, advil and ostio biflex is always the first coarse of treatment. As people tend to build up resistance to arthritis drugs . So he says treat it with the less is more attitude till stronger stuff is needed.

[alma]

I've been reading about cox-2 inhibiters.

Apparently, the docs thought that vioxx and celebrex were going to be wonder drugs, but they had to be taken off the market because of some serious problems with them.

Now, natural cox-inhibiters are tumeric, ginger and bromilain, found in pineapple, all excellent anti-inflamitory, tumeric to detoxify the liver..

Tumeric is the yellow color orientals use in rice, and other foods.

It can be put in a capsule and taken or made into a tea or put on soups, etc.

Long and useful article in motherearthnews, issue 183 Dec/Jan 2001.

EASY WAYS TO UPTAKE YOUR INTAKE OF COX-2 INHIBITORS:

1.Replcae some or all of your coffee with green tea and/or Camomile infusions. Spice them up with clove, lavender, marjoram , rosemary, sage and thyme.

2.Eat more celery, chives, currents and rhubarb.

3. Use more celery seed, and tumeric in teas and cooking.

Grape juice, red wine for their reserverol, stuffed grape leaves.

from "The most important medicine you'll ever grow" by james duke.
much more than i could possibly tell y ou or absorb myself. love, alma

[Faye]

Thanks for the info. I bought Osteo BiFlex saturday and started taking it. I sure hope it helps because it sure does ache sometimes.

[bookwormom]

how are you faring? I just got a report from a friend with arthritis to the effect he is free of pain after taking tart cherry juice concentrate for 8 days. thought I'd pass it on. have no idea where you can get tart cherry juice concentrate.

[CarolAnn]

I've been reading a lot about arthritis lately and found some interesting stuff!

My aunt has dangerously low potassium levels, so that's where I started, and found this:

http://members.tripod.com/~charles_W/arthritis.html

This site says that there is some evidence to suggest that low potassium may cause rheumatoid arthritis! Although potassium is inexpensive and easy to get in a variety of foods, it's also a dangerous nutrient to mess with. Get too much, and it can affect the heart - even to death. That's why potassium supplements are such a low dosage - you'd have to eat a couple of bottles of it to get enough to do any damage. Decreasing salt helps.

Other causes of arthritis can be Lyme disease. Here's a link to some scary reading about that:
http://www.springboard4health.com/notebook/health_lyme_disease.html#journey

OK, so if arthritis can be caused by an imbalance of nutrients AND by viral infection, does the Lyme disease somehow block absorption of potassium? Has this even been studied? Seems like it should be!

I've also read that large doses of gelatin in the diet helps to repair lost cartilage in the joints, and is a cheap thing to add to the diet. It was, until people found out that it really does help. Now it's almost doubled in price, but still a lot cheaper than traditional prescribed meds would be!

Arthritis is also an inflammation of the joints. A doctor told me that if I want to keep mine under control, to take small amounts of anti-inflammatory drugs like Tylenol, Advil or Aspirin so that the inflammation doesn't get to intolerable levels in the first place.

The problem with this is that all three pain killers have bad effects on the body. Aspirin causes blood thinning. Tylenol is metabolized in the liver, and can cause damage if used too long. Advil is metabolized in the kidneys and can damage them if used too much to too long.

So what I do is to use a little of all three pain relievers rather than just one kind and go without when I can stand to. (I'm using brand names rather than Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen here, but I only buy the generic ones.)

I figure if I'm in too much pain to get through my day, it doesn't do me much good to try to keep my kidneys and liver protected. So I try to damage everything equally and as little as I can get by with! :P

You may not have arthritis at all, but could have a bone chip if you've ever fallen, or even a pinched nerve. If you notice the pain more in the morning, or if it gets worse with a sudden drop or rise in barometric pressure, it's more likely to be a form of arthritis.
It's worth reading all you can and examining your life style to determine what remedies will help you the most! One thing for sure: living in pain is the pits!

[CarolAnn]

Oh, yeah - Bookwormmom's black cherry juice. There is something in black or tart cherries that helps remove excess uric acid from the body. It's one "old wives tale" that was proven true in clinical trials.

My dad used it for his gout for years - and six tart cherries a day was a small price to pay to remain gout free!

[WileyCoyote]

I thought I was getting arthritis. My elbows and wrists would burn with pain, and immobilization and guarding from movement didn't help. It got so bad that I would wake up in the mornings with my whole arm swollen, burning in every joint, and unable to move the extremity for hours.

Three months ago I was diagnosed with lupus - an auto-immune disorder. This explained a lot more than the 'arthritis' - it explained why I have been, as I aged, increasingly unable to fight off infection. My belly is a road map of scars from surgeries of organs that had to be removed because they became so infected that they were causing my entire body to go septic.

I take kallawalla from www.organichope.com as an immune-system builder. I only started it two months ago, and over time it has increased my ability to continue to strengthen. It has helped quite a bit to reduce the daily inflammations, but a relapse will still put me in the hospital on a combined IV of Flagyl and Cipro, battling a recent infection. I have also cut down considerably on acidic foods like tomatoes, which increases arthritic inflammation. I am trying a whole-body approach, as with all things.

I am allergic to Aleve and cannot take it, so I sympathize with you about the concoctions with which one must experiment to overcome the onset of physical problems.

[annabella1]

funny you should bring this up because I just have found out what helps my arthritis. For years I had heard that some people are sensitive to nightshade vegetables and they cause inflamation of the joints. I didn't believe it. Both Mom and I have Osteo-arthritis, she decided that she would try going nightshade free and after 10 years of arthritis pain it's gone. I have always been unable to digest potato properly so I decided to get rid of the rest of the nightshade family and guess what? No pain!
The nightshade vegetables are:
potatoes, (Irish or White, sweet potatoes are not nightshades)
tomatoes,
peppers, (sweet [bell] or hot [chillies]) and that includes spices made with them.(The black pepper seasoning[as in salt and pepper] is not a night shade)
tomatillos,
eggplants,
ground cherries,
and a few other unusual veggies.

The problem is some form of nightshade veggie is in almost anything you would buy prepared or get at a restaurant, So it means making a lot of things from scratch and finding substitutes so things aren't so bland.

I also had a great deal of relief a couple of years ago when my right knee went really bad by using MSM. My doctor had me take 10 times the normal dosage for 10 days and it helped reduce the inflammation and heal the joint.

So I guess the choice is to do every thing you can to prevent inflammation (like avoid nightshades) or take things to reduce inflammation (like cherry juice, or ibuprofen, or MSM or osteo-biflex) or do both.

Every once in a while I will eat a little nightshade vegetable and boy I feel it the next day.

[Pitdog]

Dearest Alma, my mother saved me a newspaper clipping you and others might be interested in since you brought up Turmeric.
'Ingredient in Curry has cleared skin condition'
A gentleman wrote in to let readers know that after reading about Turmeric and all of it's wonders. He had Psoriasis on his hands and feet so bad he lost his fingernails (sound familiar?) within a month he was clearing up and regrowing nails.
Turmeric has anti-inflammatory as well as anti-oxidant properties (Annals of Sciences, December 2004)
Going to buy it tomorrow. I want to email and find out the dosage- peoplespharmacy@gmail.com for questions.

[Penny_Plinker]

I recently started taking the tumerick and MSM. *Here's an interesting folk remedy...guess it's been around *awhile but i only just heard of it.

Place 1 box of white raisins in a shallow glass pan. *Cover with good quality dry gin and let stand about a week till the gin evaporates. *Then store the raisins in an airtight container and eat 9 a day. *

I used Tanqueray Gin which *has been distilled 4 times and has a strong juniper/pine-like odor. *It cost $20 for the smallest bottle but there's still enough left to do another box of raisins.

Edited to say: I later saw the Tanqueray at sams club for 14.95 for a very large bottle so Rite Aide isn't too good of a place to buy liquor.

Penny

[Danielle]

Faye,
I had terrible deep elbow pain for nearly a year. My doctor said it was tennis elbow and gave me a silly brace to velcro around my arm.
I was at my chiropractor for another issue and without my even saying anything he told me that I was having elbow pain during his evaluation. He's amazing.
I admitted it and told him the doctor said it was tennis elbow and he just made a disgusted sound and said...."this is going to hurt." Then he did this terrible deep massage thing that hurt like heck, but I haven't had a lick of pain there since and it's been almost a year.
So...just maybe your chiropractor can help resolve this or at least let you know if he thinks you need a medical doctor instead.