I am trying to work out what brings on an inflammatory response . I have just had a piece of cake with my tea and I can feel my hands fizz and tingle.
Does anyone else get the same response to certain foods?
I am going on a big diet next year,I am going to cut out all sugars as much as possible and see if that helps.
What are your thoughts?
Jane x
Curry sets me off ! But I went to slimming world and was sure it wouldn't work because of steroids and diabetes but two month later after eating loads I have lost one and a half stone! Very pleased and I would recommend the diet as its healthy filling and tasty
Thanks Allanah for replying.
I am okay with curry thankfully as I love curry. I thought I would join Weight Watchers as it is only round the corner and I can go on my day off.
Well done for losing one and a half stone that's brilliant. I want to loose about that much so I can feel more comfortable with myself and to help my joints.
If I don't speak to you before,have a happy Christmas.
Jane x
Me and you competition next year!! We might not beat our lovely Sylvia tho!!!
heathers mum surprised your specialist hadnt already suggested it......my wife was told.
the only book you need is their little book of sauces
fantatastic makes losing weight a pleasure plus your cooking from scratch so you know whats in it
allanah have you got slimming worlds little book of sauces? what a book.
but as you say every meal you eat is made from scratch and you know whats gone in it.
we get further cooking inspiration from the magazine.....oh and something you maybe interested in,,is a breakfast dish ,,,,,,,,,,,,,1 cup of pudding rice 9 cups of water, it can either be cooked on the top or in the oven.....great on its own or with some fruit and yoghurt.
chinese call it conji
Yes sounds good. I want to loose two stone by the summer.
We might not beat Sylvia,but we will feel brilliant for trying.
X
heathers mum my wifes flare ups were caused by alcohol...im talking about 1 glass.
i could tell when she was having a flare up her knuckles went hot and her hands went knarly.
as for the cake, was it home made or shop bought.....look at the ingredients.
merry christmas
steve
The cake was home made. My daughter made it yesterday.
After she told me how much sugar was in there, I'm not surprised I flared up!!
Happy Christmas .
Hi
I have cut out all dairy and meat products from my diet and restrict the amount of sugar I have via cakes and biscuits. I did this gradually over time and I am feeling great with very little swelling if any now whereas before I changed my diet my body was terrible. I I inject enbrel once a week and have dramatically decreased my daily steroid amount and hope to be completely off steroid tablets by May next year by tapering gradually down 1mg per month.
Hi Jane, I'm with Allanah ref Slimming world. You get more choice and it is very fulfilling. I lost 1 1/2 stone with SW and had to eat more than normal to achieve it! My husband kept saying to me - "Surely you can't eat all that and lose weight!" WW are always changing their plans and equipment that you can buy and you can be quite hungry. I have tried both. Good luck with reaching your goal. Happy Christmas xxxx
Hi Jane, I react to gluten so have had to cut it out. All my affected joints go crazy and My tummy feels swollen. It really sucks. There are lots of other possible inflamatory foods patrick holford has a decent book called the anti inflammatory diet. Doing it for a month eased my hips so i could swim again which is brilliant. Good luck with big dietary changes. I'm doing it too 
Steph
My sister has Lupus and really reacts poorly to gluten foods. So I went gluten free to see if it helped my RA. I did it for close to a year. Long story short, I had to go out of town and couldn't stick to my regime and wound up having loads of gluten foods...no response. So I came to the conclusion that gluten isn't one of my trigger foods. And actually haven't found a food that is a trigger to be truthful.
I'm afraid coffee is a trigger for me. Afraid,because alongside Bob Dylan and Sunderland AFC, it is one of my greatest passions. Just have a whiff of espresso and I'm off. Used to go to bed anticipating my first coffee of the morning. Lapsed, and had one this morning and my feet are 'fizzing'.
Funnily enough, I've been wondering the same thing Heathersmum... Over the last year, I have noticed my body starting to react badly to certain food/drinks - first alcohol, then white flour/bread, and possibly orange juice...
Then in November I gave up sugar completely (to raise money for charity) and noticed a marked improvement in my inflammation, but as it coincided with a depo steroid injection, and wasn't long after an increase in my NSAID dose, I thought it was more likely to be the conventional meds. However, I have had a couple of incidents this week that have made me wonder... I have stayed mostly off sugar so far in Dec, but I had a half-pint of fresh orange juice last Sat and a mince pie on Weds, and each time I apparently had a 'reaction' within a few hours: after the orange juice, I had something that felt exactly like a bad 'hangover'; and after the mince pie, my hands swelled up for the first time in 5-6 weeks... So I am now also wondering whether I react badly to sugar...
I agree! I haven't seen any obvious immediate effects on PsA with sugar, though rich, stodgy food or simply too much food makes me feel generally 'blah'. Hard to judge but I think I would have got away with it before PsA. But after indulging in the world's biggest brownie, with a chocolate stick thing, ice-cream and goodness knows what else in the mix, my psoriasis went mental. Itchiest night ever! My daughter-in-law loves sweet food but reckons it has a very definite bad effect on her fibromyalgia.
Hi
This is a very interesting topic and I think illustrates clearly that there is probably no hard and fast rule about what and what not to eat and that it seems to be a very individual response to certain foodstuffs.
One of the nurses we work with always reckons that if you feel that a certain food is causing your RA to flare then cut it out and then after a while reintroduce it to see if this triggers anything and if it does then cut it out. According to the author of one of the articles on diet, the most important things is to maintain a healthy weight and a balanced diet, one that is rich in omega 3 fatty acids - you can read more about this on this link nras.org.uk/what-diet-to-re...
Thank you for replying Lorraine.
I definitely am having a reaction to really sweet things and after I had eaten a curry on Saturday evening I started to get the same pain.
I am slowly starting to see a pattern with what I eat. Your right this is a very interesting topic.
Merry Christmas.
Jane
Lorraine_NRAS is right that diet is a complex subject. However I disagree that simply cutting out one food stuff is the best approach to finding out what is right and what is wrong. This is because is leaves far too much to chance. Take for example if you cut out milk. Do you also cut out all foodstuffs that contain milk and all its variants, eg whey!
Recognising a successful reaction to a particular foodstuff can be very tricky. For instance if you are on drugs (which I recommend with certain caveats) then by definition the affects of foodstuffs on RA symptoms are masked.
Also it is a scientific fact that most if not all drugs for RA interfere with the way the gut works. This is why people on DMARDs have monthly blood tests. This is why methotrexate is prescribed along with Folic Acid, aka Vitamin B9. When my RA broke out the diclofenac tablets almost destroyed my liver. So if your insides are not working properly how on earth can you rely on chance testing?
The only way to definitively work out what foods cause problems and which do not is an elimination diet. Simply cutting out one food stuff, or adding another in (eg a supplement) may yield results. But the odds are still stacked against you! An elimination diet is the only way to get the best chance of success for most people.
However not all elimination diets are created equal. Surely a first class elimination diet is one that provides a fully nutritionally balanced daily food intake that has the very least chance of causing aggravation to the gut. This is one of the things that appealed to me about the paddison program, because that program's elimination diet starts by cutting out dairy, meat, fish, oils, gluten, nuts and more and yet provides lots of protein and other key nutritional ingredients.
Paddison program goes further by encouraging people who get unexpected flares to revisit their personal successful baseline diet. This helps people with RA regain that pain-free experience and verify foods they initially they had thought were safe (or unsafe) with their improved gut.
Yes that's a tough elimination diet but RA is a tough illness and, as Lorraine said, diet is a complex business. If we are going to crack RA, then for each individual let's do the job once and do it properly!
When I started Paddison my CRP was over 170 mg/L. From that moment, with some hiccups it steadily dropped. Last month it was 25mg/L, and it now stands at 9 mg/L. Next month I am confident I will be in remission with a CRP below 5 mg/L.
My DMARD has been MTX. MTX is good because it does although you need the regular blood tests, unlike many other DMARDs it does not interfere with the gut healing process. I am still on 12.5mg MTX though once in remission and after discussion with my doctor that will be steadily reduced to until I am drug free and still in remission for the rest of my life.
Fighting Diet & Steriods.
advice on my diet?
What to do
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