Dear Nutritionist,
I suffer from arthritis and have to have a lot of medication for pain. I take daily NSAIDs and I’m worried. I get horrible constipation and stomach pain and I notice the joint pain has started to get resistant. I’ve had to go higher in my dose, which worries me. My rheumatoid arthritis started five years ago. I was told it only gets progressively worse. I know there’s no known cure but would you know of any safe and natural treatment that can help with the pain so I could reduce the amount of NSAIDs I take? Thank you for your column!
Thank you!
Melaena from Barrie
Dear Malaena,
I love these difficult questions, keep them coming!
You are going to be on cloud 9, Malaena, because I know holistic therapies that both help with the pain of RH arthritis and ones that help manage it long-term. This is because I used to suffer from it. But not anymore.
You see, when I was 19 I was diagnosed with it. I had gotten mononucleosis from working at a cafe and handling all the dishware. When my immune system was taken out with mono I developed painful swelling in all my joints. I mean every joint - even my toes! My knees were at least 3x their normal size! I was at first diagnosed with water on the knee then had tests for rheumatoid factor (RF) and was diagnosed with migratory rheumatoid arthritis. They said it was migratory because after the initial flare up it moved around from joint to joint, often taking out several at once.
I was so ceased up I had to manually unlock my joints after sleeping because they would lock up in the position I had been in. It was excruciating. Ladies, think of the pain of labour and multiply that by 10! It’s unbelievable how painful it is! Once I got moving I had to crawl to the bath - probably 3x a day - to soak in hot water. It was the only thing that gave me any relief.
All I could do was eat boiled noodles, drink hot chocolate, crush tylenol 3, bathe, and sleep. I moved like a zombie and a friend who saw me during that time commented that I looked like I had aged 30 years.
Fast forward to today and I rarely have a flare up and know exactly how to treat it if I do. But the solution came in increments over the years. Let me explain.
First, let me back up. During the flare up I had a manual car and couldn’t drive because my knees couldn’t handle it. This was before cell phones so I didn’t have one of those either. And I had lost my job so I didn’t have a landline either. I lived in the country and my then partner left. So I eventually ran out of food and hot chocolate. When I did I was forced to water fast. I now know water fasting is extremely beneficial for overcoming inflammation but I didn’t know that then. I just knew that spontaneously started to get better. Within three days of no food (toxins) I was feeling much much improved. Enough to drive and stop the T3. Once I did that, I never got so bad again.
But every year when I returned to school and rather frequently after parties the RA would flare up - sometimes for days and sometimes for months. It mostly affected my knees but also my elbows and shoulders and every time I had to wake to ceased joints I would get that familiar terror... wondering if it was coming back again. I lived in fear. Doctors and specialists could not explain the coming and going symptoms.
Then my stepmother made a discovery.
My father had had a triple bypass and had to switch to decaf for his recovery. Because of that she switched, too. She reported to me that her arthritis was much improved. Did I want to try it for mine? Well, it was easy enough to do so I switched to decaf all the time. Immediately I got about an 80 per cent improvement. So I ditched the caffeine altogether for a couple weeks and the RA went away entirely. I was flabbergasted. Everything started to make sense.
When I returned to school or went to functions I invariably drank coffee that I would not drink at home. Or eat a little chocolate something. I didn’t have these in my home. I drank decaf at home because I knew the caffeine made me jittery. So when I drank regular coffee at school or functions I would get a flare up. I also realized why it got so bad with my migraines. My migraine medicine has caffeine in it. Guess what else does? T3s.
I had been living on hot chocolate and T3s when I had my worst flare up!
Today I have to be careful how much caffeine I have. But it took me years to be able to tolerate it at all. I had to work on my liver and remove low grade food intolerances from my diet. Still, if I overdo caffeine, dairy, and wheat I am down for a couple days. You could say those are my kryptonite.
Every person I’ve treated for RA has serious underlying food intolerances and is sensitive to some degree to alcohol and caffeine. They usually also have some issues with their blood and digestion. Aside from telling you to switch to swiss water decaf and throw out the teas and chocolate immediately, I want you to avoid all alcohol and talk to your doctor about replacing any medications that have caffeine for a trial to see if it benefits you. I suggest you get food intolerance testing by a professional and figure out which foods trigger you. This is essential in the long run.
Next I suggest a few herbs to help with pain relief. NSAIDs are particularly damaging not only to the lining of the stomach and digestive system but to the gut biome, and this causes an increase in inflammation over time! That is not what we want.
Turmeric and the curcumin from it are both extremely beneficial in helping joint pain. They thin the blood, though, so a licensed physician needs to supervise use if you are taking blood thinners. The good news is it can work just like low dose aspirin without the side effects. But again, do not make changes without talking to a doctor to oversee this if you take meds for your blood. You can get this supplement in capsule form and you can add powdered turmeric to your food. Most potent may be the liposomal form, but it would need to be consumed with food. You can also use the root, which looks like a bright orangey yellow ginger - to fresh juices for added benefit.
The reason NSAIDs damage the stomach lining is they down regulate prostaglandins - of which some cause pain and some protect against pain and protect tissues like the stomach lining. We can effectively increase the beneficial prostaglandins by adding quality krill or cod liver or omega 3 fish oil into the diet as a supplement in therapeutic quantities (again taken with meals) and adding sardines and salmon (with skin and bones) into the weekly diet. You would be amazed how many cool recipes there are for sardines and canned salmon on the internet. Do a search and try something new!
In addition, using herbs to help your liver work better helps address this issue at the root. I use milk thistle, dandelion, and alpha lipoic acid in high doses with custom herbal tinctures for clients with these issues. Professional supervision is best for any high dose of supplements for any length of time.
I also recommend a liquid diet to take strain off of the digestive system and ensure all nutrients are being absorbed optimally until the body’s inflammation is under control. Bone broth is particularly soothing to a weak digestive system. I also recommend smoothies with quality protein and collagen peptides to help nourish without producing inflammation. This has been very effective in a number of clients in reducing pain.
Another remedy for pain that is incredible and simple is capsaicin cream. It’s made from the active ingredient in chilli peppers and helps reduce the transmission of pain signals in the nerves. It can be really helpful for rubbing on the site of pain and is very safe - as long as you use gloves to apply it and don’t rub your eyes after!
Lastly, homeopathics that fit your specific situation are essential if you want to turn the problem around permanently. But homeopathic remedies applied without knowledgeable dietary intervention do not produce the same results in clients, in my experience. Nutrition is the foundation of the inflammatory response in the body.
I hope this helps your pain, Malaena, and invite you to reach out to address the arthritis more deeply together.
As always, if you have your own health/nutrition questions, don’t hesitate to send me an email at [email protected]. Readers can find out more about my work and sign up for my newsletter at hopenotdope.ca.
Namaste!
Nonie Nutritionista
