I came across these videos when I was looking for the natural remedy to maintain my remission. I found them very informative and very good hence would like to share with all of you.
We went up a little hill 2 weeks ago in another state and had a good time over there together with my girl friend. I was in purple and I am now having a normal life after 2 years of suffering. I believe the methotrexate and arava have helped me a lot during my recovery process. Of course, I also exercise daily to ensure speedy recovery too.
Thank you. I am very lucky to have caught it early and my dr was aggressive with the remicade. I have had this now for 15 years. I went on disability after four years as it was and is painful. I am just now able to go off Orencia and just take methotrexate and sulfasalizine I hope to start exercising again soon. My mother had RA and smoked. I have never smoked but had achy knees when I was eight. Was able to work for 30 years as an RN. I am 59 now and still have sore feet and ankles when I walk. It is only by the wonderful Drs and nurses that I am alive today. My RA showed up in my feet first like my mothers.
Those who had RA before the introducing of the multiple usage of the DMARD treatment method would be unfortunate really. The research showed that with the combination of the DMARD and treated the RA patient aggressively at the very early stage would greatly reduce the chances of damaged joints.
I was lucky to be diagnosed at the very early stage and got the treatment in about a month. But was given only the mtx for about 1 1/2 year. The improvement was very slow hence my rheumotologist decided to add on with leflunomide (Arava) for my treatment.
To start of my RF and CCP factors were negative and my X-Ray was good hence I recovered very well after that. I am not sure if you have gone through my the other post, exercise is another very important part of our recovery process if you want to continue your normal life in future. In case have not gone through my the other post yet, below is for your reference.
My RA factor was 180 when I was diagnosed and I was in a lot of pain. Methotrexate didn't touch it or enbrel shots. It was necessary to go to remicade. Even that I had to keep increasing. I had and still do have difficulty walking. I was able to go into remission enough to exercise but stopped four years ago due to my left foot hurting so much I was on crutches for nine months. My X left me with our son who was 5 right away. Trying to juggle everything on my own was hard. Had to move. Got support until my son was 18 and now may have to move again. I am suffering from depression from lack of support. I have faith in Jesus and that is all that gets me through. I know things are getting better. I did have aggressive treatment for 15 years. Only recently able to come of Orencia intravenous and did so as I had no immune system and mouth sores. Really thought I would get lymphoma or throat cancer It has been a fight for me. Nothing like yours at all.
I am very very sorry to know your situation. With RA, only we know how tough it could be without any support around. However, we must be strong and have faith to believe that we will be able to live a normal life again. Continue to work on our body and work with the doctor, we will be okay one day.
I am a single mother, I had no support at all at home. My 3 children were and are in colleges overseas therefore I was all alone. When I collapsed, I really had hard time to even got food for myself. I was lucky that I had/have many good friends around, they sent me food when I was on medical leave for a week.
I could only ate some good food when my friends sent the food to me. Thereafter I could only eat whatever still good on the table. Over here the weather is very hot, I am from Malaysia, hence food will turn bad easily if it is kept outside the fridge. I could not keep the extra food in the fridge because my hands were in great pain and no strength to open the door of the fridge.
I even thought of committing suicide at one point, but I knew my youngest son was just in his first year in college, he needed me to support his education and living expenses. That gave me the will power to move on. I told myself that I must not failed my son, I would stand up again one day.
To avoid muscle wastage, we cannot wait for remission to start the exercise. You can start the exercise daily as long as you feel you can do it. Do bear in mind that it is still a very painful exercise. Say you are not able to walk properly yet, with crutches on, you can still walk around slowly. No matter how small the step can be, it is better than doing nothing. Also you can sit on a chair and do some upper part body exercise and move your legs without any weight on them.
You may refer to the video for exercises that may be easy for you to follow:
I was in great pain like many of you here. I had been through the tough time and now at remission. I do like to share my experience hoping that it can inspire as many sufferers as possible to see the light of hope in front and to believe that we can back to our normal life one day for sure. We just need sometimes to get to that.
But I'm seriouslythinking of getting medical pension.
Mu job is too demanding even when you are on top health .
I'm 53 and have to be realistic that the clock is ticking and if I want to go and travel I have to do it now .im thinking of heading to Thailand to teach English .
At this age, if you like to do something for yourself, why not? Of course if you can afford it. Thailand is near Malaysia, if you happen to come down to Malaysia, then just message me. Who knows if we can meet up one day in another part of the world.
To me, do what you like most and no regret in life one day when we look back.
I am glad you find these videos helpful. I believe only when we know what is going on with us, we can control better. I also believe good things and informative are meant to be shared.
Good information meant to be shared, therefore I do not mind to post it to the 2 places. However, I could only post it to NRAS: healthunlocked.com/nras but not able to post it to Arthritis Action: healthunlocked.com/arthriti.... I am not sure why.
Please proceed to post and share it if you find the videos are good for any group to read. I am not sure if I have posted to NRAS correctly?
Indeed, these are the most organized RA information that I have come across so far. A lot of my questions had been answered after viewing them.
I don't believe by having dietary control, RA can be cured or into remission permanently. However, I do believe it does help to avoid flare up. I did not follow any dietary control, I only followed my rheumatologist instruction closely since day one, I was already in good shape after about a year of treatment. However, my rheumatologist only declared my remission after about 22 months' treatment. I believe she was being very careful to avoid any wrong declaration. After the medication, I continue to get better each day. I am basically back to my normal life many months back.
She reduced my mtx from 8 x 2.5 mg to 6 x 2.5 mg in May 2016. When I saw her few days ago, she said though my disease is in good control now, she preferred to keep me with the same dosage for a while to ensure no flare up in future.
I guess I might be the very lucky one to achieve this stage. My blood test results were almost perfect too. I am taking turmeric golden paste daily since a month ago, hopefully I will be off medication in future.
Agree with you here. Dietary is always open to all of us who like to try. However, this should not replace the medication to avoid any further damage to our joints, it is just too big a risk to take.
Amy_Lee as someone who has spent almost the last 6 months on the tight Paddison Program I feel almost ready to come of the last drug, MTX, which will be done with doctor's advice and slowly... In taking this final step towards recovery/remission whatever it may be called I have taken further steps to ensure my body is in very good health. As part of improving my body, I am clear that parts of my body improving include both my sinovial joints and my knee cartilage. The body is an amazing thing, that given the right conditions can largely recover by itself.
I have lived for forty years with bad knee joints. 2 months ago my rheumy said, when I want them replaced both operations can be scheduled anytime. 6 Months ago I was facing a cliff-edge of RA bad health and drug regimes as powerful as any on these forums. Instead, I did my research and with the information absorbed about diet, muscular and neural health I am convinced that my body, and in particular my knees are on a road to better health - without any operations, and without any drugs.
It is not an instant cure, and I have had some very bad days and nights. But I am definitely coming out the other side a richer human being. To conclude, at Easter I was housebound / in a wheelchair. Following the PP diet, two weeks ago I walked 8 miles in a wave of three totally pain & inflammation free days. Honestly I felt I was in heaven.
This weekend I was hoping and expecting to be able to walk up a large hill. It didn't happen and I cried so much with disappointment caused by food/drink that triggered horrible pain and inflammation. But two days later I am back into recovery and will take further measures to ensure I do not eat those items again.
I do believe food that we take is one of the key factor to our health. I was back to quite normal, that meant I do really feel much pain when I moved around, 10 months after the medication though I was still not able to sit on the floor and squat down and I was getting very much better after that. Today, I am moving around and hiking away as usual, therefore I like to try out if milk products are the key to bad health?
After these 2 weeks of drinking a glass of milk and a piece of cheese a day, I find okay. So I will continue the milk products further until the next blood test to tell if my results are okay. For food products that said no good to us, I keep a record of what I eat. I hope thing will go well.
You are very early, I suppose. Where are you from and what time is it over there? It is 5.38 pm, Sunday evening in Malaysia. I am not working these two days hence I actually spend a lot of time going through internet to see what I want to see.
Today, I spend most of the time looking for links related to my son who studies in America right now. He has left home for many years, I do miss him a lot.
As for the links that you sent me, I will try to go through and let you know my opinion. However, as I said, unless decided by my rheumatologist, I will not let go of the medication to avoid my health to be affected.
In fact, I did went through some of their links and subscribed to their links too. Many emails were sent to me daily after that suggesting many good supplements where I am not ready to buy. Because my rheumatologist said that I should not take any supplement without their approval if I want to maintain my remission.
No hard feeling, it is just different in opinion. May be you have the courage to go for dietary treatment and it works for you, but I am not prepared to try. As I said, I will adopt some good diet to maintain my remission and hope that my rheumatologist will stop my medication one day in future.
I am a single mother, I cannot take any risk because my kids are still very much depend on me to complete their education.
I will try to see if I can unsubscribe the link. I could also access to their videos freely without subscribing to their link. Long before I joined here, I already had gone through some of their links. I kind of agree to them on the dietary aspect to maintain a healthy remission but I never agree dietary can reverse RA damage. Because of the agreeing, I subscribed to their videos and wanted to see more.
When you sent me their link the first time I joined this group, I actually had gone through their links before but not all. Especially paddisonprogram, there was no full information given, always ended to request to pay for the program if I needed more details. I had gone through many videos of those people who claimed successfully reverse their RA after joining his program.
I did not comment on your links because I felt that you were pushing to sell something to RA patients too. That is my own personal feeling, I am sorry if you are not.
Thank you Kai. I am very sorry to have the misunderstanding really. I actually do pick up here and there from what they said. Anyhow, I will seriously go through again.
On another note, because of tested osteopenia recently, my doctor did advice me to take food with more calcium. I asked if I should take milk products? She said just go ahead because that is the main source of calcium. Therefore, despite skipping the milk product for 2 years, I started them again two weeks ago. I will see what my blood test going to be in Nov. Currently my blood test is almost perfect, I hope it can be maintained.
I did watch a lot of these kind of videos highlighting that no red meat, no daily products and so on to avoid inflammation and leaky guts, therefore I stopped taking the daily products for 2 years. I hardly take red meat, so that is not a problem to me at all. I also know that the green vegetables do provide us with calcium and so on. However, since my physician said that food should not be the issue hence I like to put that back into my diet one at a time. So far so good after about 2 weeks really. I yet to see my blood test later in Nov.
Like what you said, my physician did tell me just do what I do and eat what I eat. May be let me try this round and I will decide. Yes, I am watching those links that you suggested. It certainly takes time because I have a full time work to do. In addition, not all the weekends I will be available, some weekends I will be involved with voluntary work. Therefore, I will take it slowly, after all, these are revision for me.
Thanks for taking so much time to write so much to me. I know you worry as much as I do. We do not want to go back to those painful days. I never fail to do my exercise every morning.
My doctor said that I am still very new in RA hence I have a lot to learn. May I know a flare up for you after how long you took the milk products? How it took you to go back to normal?
What? It flare-up the next day and took nearly a week to subside? That really means you should not take it anymore from now on.
I have taken the milk products for 2 weeks already, no issue so far, thanks God for the blessing. However, I do not know your condition really? Were/Are you also in remission then and now? How long was your remission, if you were, before you tried the milk product? I hope you do not mind to share because I am learning to be in better control.
Yes, agree with you on this. These are the most well organized videos on RA that I found. One can easily understand what RA is all about after watching the videos.
Dear Barb66, we need to know more to be in control of our disease. When I was diagnosed, I knew nothing about RA. I was in search of information because I wanted to be in control of my own body. I found these 2 videos which gave me most of the answers I had in mind. I felt more comfortable to go on with the treatment and I trusted that my rheumy would put me back to my normal life one day if I followed the treatment closely.
Bring your family members with you when you go for your appointment. Let them listen to the conversation between you and your rheumy. I believe in that way they can understand your problem better and will give you more support.
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