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Arthritis Diet
There are two kinds of arthritis.
Osteoarthritis – A degenerative condition that often occurs with age. Osteoarthritis causes stiffness and pain in the affected joints. Being overweight can sometimes worsen symptoms due to the greater load on the joints.
Rheumatoid arthritis – an inflammatory condition involving multiple joints. The joints often swell and cause pain. Sometimes the sufferer (typically adult women) will go through periods of remission.
Nutrition to Relieve Arthritis Symptoms
Unfortunately there is conflicting advice regarding diet for arthritis. Despite some clinical trials taking place, many results are considered to be a placebo affect. However there are some guidelines that may help.
- Oily fish – such as cod liver oil supplements, tuna, salmon, and sardines.
- Vitamin C – found in many foods such as kiwifruit, peaches, oranges.
- Vitamin E – Unsalted nuts
- Turmeric and ginger – anti-inflammatory foods (use in curries, soups, or stews).
- Some report that a vegetarian or vegan diet has helped.
Conquering Arthritis: What Doctors Don’t Tell You Because They Don’t Know by Barbara D. Allan, has many helpful tips for sufferers based on Barbara’s years of experience working with RA patients in her medical practice. Also, if you want to review the latest data provided to the medical community, the Medscape Rheumatoid Arthritis articles are a good place to start.
Foods That May Aggravate
- Some report that vegetables from the solanum (or nightshade) family cause problems – potatoes, capsicums, eggplant, and tomatoes.
- Foods high in saturated fat – such as full-fat dairy, fatty meat, baked foods.
- Dairy products
Finding What Helps You
The only way to find out if something is aggravating your arthritis is to constantly monitor your diet. Do this by keeping a journal of what you have eaten, and what pain you experience. If you begin to notice any patterns (such as joint pain the day after eating a certain food), you will need to try and isolate the cause.
Take the food out of your diet for a week, and see if you experience the same arthritic symptoms. In order to make any correlation, you will need to do this 3 times.
Bookmarks
Arthritis.org – Official site of the Arthritis Foundation.
www.niams.nih.gov – National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
A cousin of mine and the grandmother of my flatmate, are drinking boiled avocado leaves that is sundried for a day or two. After long years of drinking this sort of tea, arthritic sympthoms dissappears and they are even eating all kinds of foods ought not to be eaten by an arthritic sufferer, i mean high purine foods. The grandma i mentioned includes avocado bark with those leaves. Both of them no longer drinks water, and the only fluids they drink all throughout the day is the avocado tea leaves.
I am a 48 year old woman and have suffered lower back pain for the past 8 years. Also, my pinky joints began hurting the past year and they started to change shape. I’ve done a lot of experimenting with food the past year, and what I have found to cause me the most pain is anything that has dairy in it. Now that I don’t eat dairy, my lower back pain is completely gone and my fingers stopped hurting. Anytime I have dairy (cheese is the worst), I have lower back pain and pain all over my body for two days (the stiffness is awful!). I’ve tried again and again, and it’s always the same, the pain comes back the next day after eating dairy. Dairy has the protein, casein, in it which for some people is hard to digest. The older we get, I believe, we get more of a “leaky gut” where we can’t digest like we used to. Dairy also causes lots of inflammation in the body especially the joints. I now use almond milk, coconut creamer, and once in awhile soy milk. The pain is so much better. I just can’t do dairy! I hope this helps anyone reading this. Go cold turkey on the dairy; your body will notice a difference. I noticed a difference in three days of going cold turkey, and I’ll never go back. I’ve had two friends do the same, and they have had great results too. “Milk” is so overrated in this country; we are brainwashed into thinking we need to have it. Thanks to the Dairy Association.
From my research so far I found out that candida and high acidity in the body can be creating the conditions for developping cancer. Geans of course play role in it. i assume this applies to arthritis, too. According to Chinese medicine people with arthritis are sensitive to cold, wind and damp. I have always been like that and I have always felt the weather in my joints, but after I got 57 a few months ago, it has been real pain in all joints. Rest helps but also mild exercise. I noticed that when I was going to remedial Pilates class every Friday night,the weekend after that was great! Also, resting enough in the warm room and not being stressed to go to work helped. I have my warm shower in the evening and then I apply my massage oil. I am aromatherapist, so the proportion is: 3 drops of essential oil in one table spoon in carrier oil (i use almond oil from the Asian shops). Lavender and tea-tree are both good for inflammation, with lavender helping good sleep. Rest and de-stress are very important as anxiety tends to create acidity in the body and I suspect it triggers the arthritis. Also, after you had enough sleep, you can look after yourself better. I am looking into improving my anti-candida, anti-acidity, gluten-free diet, as in the last few years I had neglected the care for myself due to my worries and anxiety around my children’s health problems.
Acupuncture helps definitely. If you type John Tindal and then cllick on John Tindal Acupuncture, you can see his three short videos demonstrating Qi Gong. One of them is specially for arthritis, but I recommend yo learn the sequences of all three because all the systems in the body are related and their functions affect each other’s.
Arthritis is an outoimmune disease, so you need your immune system strong, to be able to protect you from colds and other infections as they could trigger the arthritis to flare up.
My son was diagnosed with cancer of not known origin at the age of 23. When I took him to a Chinese acupuncturist in London, she said he had arthritis. This was the first mentioning of it in relation to cancer and since then I have been looking into it. My daughter was diagnosed with “reactive” arthritis at the age of 29. She also has pre-cncerous cells in her cervix.
I just was diagnosed today with RA..My blood work came back positive..I am a 44 year old woman, fairly active..I am working to lose 10 pounds, so I am not really overweight…I have severe pain in my fingers and wrists..I have developed tendonitis in the past few weeks..It rotates between my right and left forearms..I would appreciate any info anyone could give me..I do believe I need to adjust my diet drastically..Thank you…
I have had pain since 1985. Fibromyalgia even before they had a name for it.
As years have gone on now I have been told i have Osteoarthritis. Now other things are going on … hands, wrists, feet, toes have pain so bad i could cry. So now i am being looked into for possibly RA. It never ends. By having this pain for so long, I have put on weight … which does hurts my condition even worse. does anyone know of a fast but healthy way get some of this weight off sooner then later. This heart ache just adds to the pain and lack of energy i already have. I wish everyone less pain in the new year.
I have had terrible pain since early 2010 in my back and hips. diagnosed as arthritis. i received facet shots in July 2010 and the pain was gone for a year and two months! it came back and just recently received more shots. these are great but shouldn’t i be haveing some treatment for the arthritis so it doesn’t get so bad when it the shots wear off?
I’m 43yrs old and was diagnosed w/ RA 2 hrs ago. I have taken various medications everyday. My doctor advised me to relax & take it easy. But my condition got worse. It came to a point where I need to have diprofos for several months just to function properly. I then started hearing about yoga & other forms of exercise to strengthen my joints, bones & muscles. I started doing gentle aqua aerobics and started exercising in the gym. I never thought I would be able to lift weights anymore but I surprised myself. The gym instructor taught me how to use the machines properly & I can honestly say that I feel so much better. I’m still stiff when I wake up early in the morning, but I do stretches & it really works. I stopped methotrexate, enbrel, rituximab (tried this one too but no effect for me) etc. And now I only take omega 3, folic acid, vitamin supplements. I also make sure that I get my 15min of sunlight daily to get my free vitamin D.
Believe me, exercise is the key. It’s unthinkable when your knees are swollen but try it, tai chi, yoga, aqua aerobics (the best) or strength& flexibility training in the gym
I am 28 and gained a weight of 76 kgs am having a severe pain in my feet and there is an inflammation seen for last 3 weeks. when i work in the home i can see there is some improvement the bulging is less but when i go to office again the bulging starts…please can anybody tell whether this is related to arthritis ? or is it because of my weight….
my mother is 42years old and having weight 70 with height 5 1′ and suffering badly from arthritis pains…..please do give some suggestions regarding proper diet and remedies
Does the chinese therapy acupunture helps
Hi there, i recently had a total hip replacement, and suffer with R.A arthritis , i have gained afew extra unwanted pound’s, i would love to know which food choices, i should be making. thank you
I have learnt a lot from these experiences, may be from some of the advice I can apply something that will alleviate my pain. remain blessed.
Thank you so much for sharing, I thought I was the only one with such a painful experience, mine usually becomes serious during the cold season and I make sure I keep myself warm and keep my knees covered all the time and avoid cold water. My other advice, is avoid red meat with alcohol and seek God as your comforter.
remain blessed.
Great advice…
RA for 21 yrs…exercise, lose weight, plenty of rest, avoid dairy food, fried foods, tomatoes, ..feel great but anemia is associated with RA ..so supplement with iron if tolerable and folic acid/vitamin C helps absorption of iron tablet…
Can you remain on a VLCD (Cambridge Diet) having been diagnosed with degenerative arthritis? ?Will the lack of regular food / diet cause further discomfort?
I was diagnosed with JCR when i was 12 and have been pricked and prodedd guinea piged with all kinds of drugs tried accupunnture, chinese medicine not knowing any better because of my age and i kind of got desprate, I decided to read up at the local library and trusty search engine “google” and trial and error (keeping a diary of what i consume soon showed me what i should not be consuming. nightshade family (stated above) Paprika anything white…most of which contain gluten, pastas, breads, processd food chips, fizzy, lollies baked goodies which are high in sugar..i have now swaped for gluteen free bread, olive oil spread or avocado, salads of leafy greans and nuts swaped potatos for pumpkin or lentils and beans swaped chips for wholegrain crakers seeds swaped cheese for tofu milk for soy sweets for dried and fresh fruit and fizzy for water red wine and fresh home made juices i have lost 30kgs and now weight 59kgs and have gone for bed ridden fat stiff and tired to healthy and fit running 45mins everyday.. i stil take naproxen which i used to take 2 pills 2x day to 1 pill 1x a week and would like to say i am cured but i prefer to say my arthritis is sleeping and has been for the last 5 years =)
pls suggest me regarding rheumatoid arthritis , my wife about 34 years old suffering from knee pain
Iam geting so much help from the information. god bless you
how is arthritis & anemia are related? & please tell me the foods that is used as a treatment for both arthritis & anemia
I’m,trying to get more info on my joint pains and a diet to follow