Biologic-free and drug-free remission is possible - If you want to risk your own life, then try going drugs free!

[Amy_Lee]

Sustained biologic-free and drug-free remission in rheumatoid arthritis, where are we now?

arthritis-research.biomedce...

[Lucy11]

I'm very happy to hear that you have reached remission Amy.

The article begs to ask:

How many people actually get diagnosed early enough to take advantage of that 'window of opportunity'?

[Amy_Lee in reply to Lucy11]

Yes, this is the key issue to get early treatment. However, over here, many RA patients have been diagnosed early but they are too scared of the side effects of DMARDs hence decided to go for the natural healing method and eventually miss the golden period of recovery. It is really sad to know that. I too give up to persuade anyone anymore to read more and equip enough good information to make good decision for themselves.

In fact, I went all the way to bring one of them to tour the hospital but few months later, she still decided to go for the natural way to heal the RA. I keep my mouth shut from then on.

[DRunnerchick in reply to Amy_Lee]

I am a health educator and even with the information I have, it does appear futile to tell some people that the disease is complicated so one thing doesn't work for everyone, there are comorbidities to consider etc. Once the 'the window of opportunity' is lost, the result is more debilitating. I'm all for eating clean and using PROVEN well researched solutions as adjunctive therapies. These diseases don't wait for you to get your diet right and to take whatever supplement, they' are. cruel , systemic diseases! I will always be thankful to you Amy_Lee for your information and kind help!

[Amy_Lee in reply to DRunnerchick]

Dear DRunnerchick, thank you for the appreciation of information sharing. I agree with you totally, the disease will not wait for us to find the right diets that help us to maintain our health, so we should not worry about the side effects of DMARDs and continue to work closely with our rheumy to avoid any unnecessary joints damaged.

I also hope that those who sell the supplements or diet programs, do explain openly that they are not rhematologists and the supplements and the diet programs should not be used to replace the DMARDs prescribed by the rhematologist, they only help to keep us healthier hence to give us a better chance to go into remission.

I met a direct selling sales person a few months ago in the nearby garden when I did my exercises there. Finally she took me to meet with her nutritionist on my RA case. The nutritionist told me to replace all my supplements, beside the DMARDs to his 100% pure similar products. I told him that there is no such thing as 100% pure products and I trust only my rheumy who gave me the supplements that would not interact with the DMARDs I took. On the other hand, I have no confident that if his "100% pure supplements" of the same kind would have any interaction with the DMARDs because he is not my rheumy.

Since I was/am in remission for many months already, I know that what I did/do was/is right and I am heading a correct direction therefore, I do not need any diet plan but I know what is right to eat for me from many information on the internet. Without any diet plan or supplement, with only closely working with my rheumy, I achieve very good result until today. I can only congratulate those who can achieve remission by going for diets plan or supplements alone, WITHOUT DMARDs.

[DRunnerchick]

I am doing well on the MTX. My labs are stable, side effects are negligible, my joints feel so much better and I have more energy. I was only diagnosed five months ago. I am not in remission but have hope that it will be possible. I have some balance issues and have had to start vestibular rehab. Those issues started before the MTX and diagnosis, but not before the joint issues. So it could be related to the RA or something else. I just keep moving forward. I have awesome doctors and we work on all of it as a team.

[Amy_Lee in reply to DRunnerchick]

I am glad that you are doing very much better. I also very happy for you to have awesome doctors. Do try to work closely with the doctors, you will go into remission one day. I went/go into remission after 1 1/2 years treatment though I was very much back to my normal self few months before that.

[Bahnmc]

Articles such as that one can be misleading and harmful. The headline needs to be updated to include "within the window of opportunity" or something. We don't need people stopping treatment in "hope" they will be one person who responds.

[Hidden in reply to Bahnmc]

The article should have the headline " If you choose to risk your life, then try going drugfree....What have you got to lose except your health?..."

[Amy_Lee in reply to Bahnmc]

I do agree with the two of you hence I changed the title to avoid anyone to be misled. Thank you for highlighting that, I merely copied the title from the article without putting much thought in it.