Great post! I'm going vegan January 1st, actually the whole family has committed to one month vegan. Even my husbands aunt is doing this. I will also be eliminating all gluten, eating no processed food and no sugar. Switching from coffee to green tea. I have a feeling diet will totally make a difference for me. I have cut all processed carbs in the past, all potatoes and anything white...no white rice, pasta and so on. I managed to have a very functioning life with only a few flares a year. Unfortunately I slacked off for a few years after the loss of two family members with in 4 months of each other...not only was I in a rut but my family. Happy to get back on track in the New Year and crossing my fingers this helps!
May I suggest something? When I make a change like this, I try to keep it small. Last year, when I switched to FODMAPS it was a huge change all at once, and it made it very difficult to keep up with. I found that if I made one change, kept it for 2 weeks then I would add another change at the end of the 2 week period, I was more successful. My quote is, “Small, measurable changes make big results”.
TaraLynn said:
Great post! I’m going vegan January 1st, actually the whole family has committed to one month vegan. Even my husbands aunt is doing this. I will also be eliminating all gluten, eating no processed food and no sugar. Switching from coffee to green tea. I have a feeling diet will totally make a difference for me. I have cut all processed carbs in the past, all potatoes and anything white…no white rice, pasta and so on. I managed to have a very functioning life with only a few flares a year. Unfortunately I slacked off for a few years after the loss of two family members with in 4 months of each other…not only was I in a rut but my family. Happy to get back on track in the New Year and crossing my fingers this helps!
And document everything - symptoms, what you ate and what time you ate. It is huge what a diet does. When I am at my strictest - everything is gone - every spot, every bit of inflammation and tightness. It took a very long time of trial and error with diet but it is pretty much all figured out for me.
Day one of vegan and gluten free and it went great! Our son did some juicing for breakfast, my husband made a huge salad loaded with goodness and I made a broccoli stir fry for dinner. I also made a croc pot full of curried veggies for tomorrow nights dinner, quinoa,chickpea,almond,cranberry curry salad and a bean dip for snacking when we are looking for something quick. Our son has been researching diet, along with myself and I received the China Study book for Christmas...haven't read it yet...our son has been reading it :-) Our family has always been clean eaters, however we thought we would give up meat and dairy and see how we feel. No problem switching from coffee to green tea, my husband made the switch a few weeks back. Also adding daily exercise (when I can) and meditation into our daily routine. This year I plan on focusing on only positive, regardless of what happens with this disease. This past year has been tough and I need to keep focused on positive things :-) Looking forward to seeing if these new changes make a difference :-)
Also wanted to add that my husbands aunt is also going vegan for this month. We may down the road (after this month) add only organic local farm chicken/eggs, fish that we catch locally and goat milk cheese. Cheese is my weakness...I love good cheese and have a goat milk brie sitting in the fridge....that will be the toughest part of these changes but I may try making almond cheese :-) My daughters friend made some at a wine and cheese party I attended a few years ago and it was good :-)
TaraLynn said:
Day one of vegan and gluten free and it went great! Our son did some juicing for breakfast, my husband made a huge salad loaded with goodness and I made a broccoli stir fry for dinner. I also made a croc pot full of curried veggies for tomorrow nights dinner, quinoa,chickpea,almond,cranberry curry salad and a bean dip for snacking when we are looking for something quick. Our son has been researching diet, along with myself and I received the China Study book for Christmas...haven't read it yet...our son has been reading it :-) Our family has always been clean eaters, however we thought we would give up meat and dairy and see how we feel. No problem switching from coffee to green tea, my husband made the switch a few weeks back. Also adding daily exercise (when I can) and meditation into our daily routine. This year I plan on focusing on only positive, regardless of what happens with this disease. This past year has been tough and I need to keep focused on positive things :-) Looking forward to seeing if these new changes make a difference :-)
I think that no matter what you will feel better. Even if you don’t get results as far as PsA relief, you will feel better overall and you will be healthier. I simply feel good when I eat right, and even the smallest positive change makes an impact in the long haul. You will definitely lower your cardiac risks, diabetes risks and lower the impact on your joints with each lost pound. I wish you the best success with your changes!
TaraLynn said:
Day one of vegan and gluten free and it went great! Our son did some juicing for breakfast, my husband made a huge salad loaded with goodness and I made a broccoli stir fry for dinner. I also made a croc pot full of curried veggies for tomorrow nights dinner, quinoa,chickpea,almond,cranberry curry salad and a bean dip for snacking when we are looking for something quick. Our son has been researching diet, along with myself and I received the China Study book for Christmas…haven’t read it yet…our son has been reading it Our family has always been clean eaters, however we thought we would give up meat and dairy and see how we feel. No problem switching from coffee to green tea, my husband made the switch a few weeks back. Also adding daily exercise (when I can) and meditation into our daily routine. This year I plan on focusing on only positive, regardless of what happens with this disease. This past year has been tough and I need to keep focused on positive things Looking forward to seeing if these new changes make a difference
I tried an anti-inflammatory diet a number of times for many months at a time. I have found absolutely no relief with them. If someone does, that's great, but it doesn't appear to work for me. I've done gluten free, yeast free, vegan, dairy free, no nightshade veg, etc. All with no relief. I did not feel any healthier when I was on any one diet. The best I ever felt was when I was cooking food myself and not eating out all the time.
Thank you GrumpyCat! I have packed on some weight during the past year do to the big decrease in activity. My husband also packed on some weight as he too has not been as active as we use to be. We are looking for an over all health benefit, if it helps the joint pain then that will be a positive :-)
GrumpyCat said:
I think that no matter what you will feel better. Even if you don't get results as far as PsA relief, you will feel better overall and you will be healthier. I simply feel good when I eat right, and even the smallest positive change makes an impact in the long haul. You will definitely lower your cardiac risks, diabetes risks and lower the impact on your joints with each lost pound. I wish you the best success with your changes!
TaraLynn said:
Day one of vegan and gluten free and it went great! Our son did some juicing for breakfast, my husband made a huge salad loaded with goodness and I made a broccoli stir fry for dinner. I also made a croc pot full of curried veggies for tomorrow nights dinner, quinoa,chickpea,almond,cranberry curry salad and a bean dip for snacking when we are looking for something quick. Our son has been researching diet, along with myself and I received the China Study book for Christmas...haven't read it yet...our son has been reading it :-) Our family has always been clean eaters, however we thought we would give up meat and dairy and see how we feel. No problem switching from coffee to green tea, my husband made the switch a few weeks back. Also adding daily exercise (when I can) and meditation into our daily routine. This year I plan on focusing on only positive, regardless of what happens with this disease. This past year has been tough and I need to keep focused on positive things :-) Looking forward to seeing if these new changes make a difference :-)
Sorry to hear that you haven't had any success with changes in your diet Sunny. After I had my kids I gained a large amount of weight and did some big life style changes by cutting simple carbs, clean eating and exercise I managed to lose well over 50lbs and keep it off for over 10 years. Unfortunately this past year I have gained probably 20lbs back and I can really feel it in my joints. I would like to shed some of this weight gain and since I can't work out like I use to I have to do it with diet. Diet is at least 80% of weight loss and along with not being able to work out the fatigue has made me feel like my metabolism is at a stand still. At the least, I hope to be able to shed some weight again and feel this will help with joint pain. But our reasoning for eliminating meat, dairy and glutens and adding as much raw and organic produce goes far beyond weight. We are looking at overall health and issues that we may face down the road . As far as going out for dinner...we live on a small Island and only go out a few times a year, usually when we travel. Even then we make healthy choices :-)
Sunny said:
I tried an anti-inflammatory diet a number of times for many months at a time. I have found absolutely no relief with them. If someone does, that's great, but it doesn't appear to work for me. I've done gluten free, yeast free, vegan, dairy free, no nightshade veg, etc. All with no relief. I did not feel any healthier when I was on any one diet. The best I ever felt was when I was cooking food myself and not eating out all the time.
It was recommended that I post this here after I wrote it inresponse to someone who mentioned that cutting their sugar intake down had helped them. It is NOT about healing PsA with Diet and it is NOT about a miracle cure in any way shape or form. Hooray for those who "cure:" themselves in that way, but most of us are not that lucky. This is only about me and some things that affected me that might be worth considering. I still have PsA, it still sucks, and I am doing better on Humira, but I am not doing well. However ... read on
I have had extensive food allergy testing done because I was allergic to the world and about to have to go on a tube feeding product for any nutrition at all. In the course of the testing I was also tested for chemical reactions. They uncovered some pretty strange things. Because of my background in foods, I was able to take the info I was given and add to it. We now know that some specific foods to which I showed allergic reaction also trigger whopping flares of psoriasis, arthritis and fibro in me, so I do not eat them at all. (AT ALL!). Easy to learn once you have a few less pain days and finally feel the difference. Topping the list are pepper (the kind you sprinkle on food, not vegetable type), fresh tomato (I can barely tolerate tomato that's been cooked into oblivion), mushrooms, orange, fish and egg. On some of these, the inflammation is evident as I appear to have burns and the red skin is hot to the touch. (I have literally burned and peeled before knowing what was causing this). On others you can set an alarm almost for which day the symptoms are going to hit. It's so predictable that my then 6 year old niece knew the schedule. I can get away with a small amt of egg occasionally and a small amt of very cooked tomato occasionally, but never escape consequences completely. Mushrooms will always, without fail, bring on a headache that is fairly significant but with which I can still function. Fish brings a migraine that is unbearable, and black pepper, cloves and cinnamon all but kill me off for many days with muscle spasms and weakness that are really, really awful. None of them is worth it. All of them have a gut component as well. All of them make my pain skyrocket. Learning to cook without using tomato has proven the most difficult but I can make good food again without it in any form.
All of the conventional wisdom about nightshades in not proved out in me. I have no symptoms with potatoes for example.
One of the chems to which I overreact is formaldehyde. Few people realize that both mushrooms and black pepper are loaded with it. So it makes sense I'd have trouble with them. I avoid both like the plague, for example no seasoning on an In and Out Burger or fries-- The seasoning has pepper in it. It's taken a lot of study. Thank heavens for my profession and background or I surely would never have connected the dots. I barely did anyway. So point of this diatribe is to say absolutely there is a connection between diet and pain, but I think it's highly individualized. Much of my continuing education for my profession now focuses on this area. There is far too little out there to learn from and far too little credible work published. I latch on to anything credible and study it and apply it. All of my continuing education for my profession is now focused on this area. (And I take Humira, and Mtrx and Ketoprofen 200 mg). I am often discouraged and fight that mightily. Maybe with what all of us learn will in time provide good data for others who will follow.
Can you tell me about the types of allergy testing you had?
I am about to embark on s significant diet change to try to reduce my levels of inflammation. Paleo, GAPS, SCD there are so many to choose from.
I have read the published literature but much of it is conflicting.
Are there any websites you can recommend for further reading?
I have found my response to foods changes with different medications. Eg have just started orencia and have developed an oral allergy to several fruits.
Thanks in advance
Pollyana said:
It was recommended that I post this here after I wrote it inresponse to someone who mentioned that cutting their sugar intake down had helped them. It is NOT about healing PsA with Diet and it is NOT about a miracle cure in any way shape or form. Hooray for those who "cure:" themselves in that way, but most of us are not that lucky. This is only about me and some things that affected me that might be worth considering. I still have PsA, it still sucks, and I am doing better on Humira, but I am not doing well. However ... read on
I have had extensive food allergy testing done because I was allergic to the world and about to have to go on a tube feeding product for any nutrition at all. In the course of the testing I was also tested for chemical reactions. They uncovered some pretty strange things. Because of my background in foods, I was able to take the info I was given and add to it. We now know that some specific foods to which I showed allergic reaction also trigger whopping flares of psoriasis, arthritis and fibro in me, so I do not eat them at all. (AT ALL!). Easy to learn once you have a few less pain days and finally feel the difference. Topping the list are pepper (the kind you sprinkle on food, not vegetable type), fresh tomato (I can barely tolerate tomato that's been cooked into oblivion), mushrooms, orange, fish and egg. On some of these, the inflammation is evident as I appear to have burns and the red skin is hot to the touch. (I have literally burned and peeled before knowing what was causing this). On others you can set an alarm almost for which day the symptoms are going to hit. It's so predictable that my then 6 year old niece knew the schedule. I can get away with a small amt of egg occasionally and a small amt of very cooked tomato occasionally, but never escape consequences completely. Mushrooms will always, without fail, bring on a headache that is fairly significant but with which I can still function. Fish brings a migraine that is unbearable, and black pepper, cloves and cinnamon all but kill me off for many days with muscle spasms and weakness that are really, really awful. None of them is worth it. All of them have a gut component as well. All of them make my pain skyrocket. Learning to cook without using tomato has proven the most difficult but I can make good food again without it in any form.
All of the conventional wisdom about nightshades in not proved out in me. I have no symptoms with potatoes for example.
One of the chems to which I overreact is formaldehyde. Few people realize that both mushrooms and black pepper are loaded with it. So it makes sense I'd have trouble with them. I avoid both like the plague, for example no seasoning on an In and Out Burger or fries-- The seasoning has pepper in it. It's taken a lot of study. Thank heavens for my profession and background or I surely would never have connected the dots. I barely did anyway. So point of this diatribe is to say absolutely there is a connection between diet and pain, but I think it's highly individualized. Much of my continuing education for my profession now focuses on this area. There is far too little out there to learn from and far too little credible work published. I latch on to anything credible and study it and apply it. All of my continuing education for my profession is now focused on this area. (And I take Humira, and Mtrx and Ketoprofen 200 mg). I am often discouraged and fight that mightily. Maybe with what all of us learn will in time provide good data for others who will follow.
Hi Sparkles. (Hmmmm there is a Sparkles that keeps popping up on my Skype. Wonder if you are one and the same??).
Trying to think how best to answer your questions. The type of testing is done extensively in other countries, but not in the USA. I don't remember the exact name but I know the Pan American Allergy Assn supports it. You are challenged with a "stick" of ____ whatever is being tested, one item at a time. They make you sick as a dog then bring you back out of it by titrating -- giving you smaller and smaller doses of the same thing until the symptoms are gone. That becomes your personal dose of whatever that thing was. It's a GREAT method for really getting to the bottom of what ails you. But again, for the most part, US doctors prefer to administer a gazillion tests at once, looking for only 1 specific type of allergic response. Pathetic given there are a couple of types of responses. It's been a long time since I've spent any time thinking about it. I’ve been busy with something else for 4+ years, but... I think the delayed reactions are IgG mediated while what U.S. Dr's test for is IgE mediated responses. Big battles rage over the efficacy of one over the other. But since it's cheaper to test a gazillion things at once instead of titrating, and since ins companies won't pay for the kind of testing I had done and since ins companies pretty much run the medicine show ... well you can see where that is headed.
As for foods/diets: I don't believe in following any given diet to try to reduce inflammation. It's too individualised. One size does NOT fit all. The best you can do if you can't find someone to test you and/or can't afford to pay for it on your own, is to go to a strict elimination diet (which you can find searching for anything about allergies and diet online, and slowly, methodically add things back, keeping strict records. You keep rigid food and symptom logs for a pretty long while. No shortcuts. But doing so helps you to identify what your triggers are instead of guessing what they are or relying on faulty research. It takes hard work, attention to detail and not accepting what people are saying. My sister all but killed me off with all her "healthy" foods. Flax? Allergic; Fish oils? Allergic. Quinoa? Allergic. Juicing carrots? Allergic. Oats? 3 guesses. And many more.
One thing that helps me is having a pertinent degree and a minor in biochemistry (as well as a passion for it). Those help me to read and interpret research and not buy into anything anyone is selling. If they want my money, how can I trust their sales pitch? I google everything, sort out the junk from credible, well founded data and go from there. I’m very careful about what I latch on to. If someone promises a miracle, I walk away.
Siummarising , I think the key is to keep religious food and symptom logs and to work through it with great patience. I think I kept them for foods, activities and exposures to even everyday household chemicals for about 5 years. Patterns eventually emerge and when they do you tailor your life to those patterns. I am still caught off guard sometimes, or learn something new that explains what on earth happened “this” time around. But there are no easy answers no matter how much some would have you believe there are. Good luck.
Thanks for such a detailed response. I have a healthcare background, sonography, and am a great believer in evidence based medicine. And there is so much here-say to filter to find the things that really work.
I have started a food and symptom diary. It is a challenge but I can see it is the only way forward to develop a dietary plan specific to me. Medical testing here is much easier and far less expensive. I will request some comprehensive testing. Given the recent oral food allergies I will have reasonable clinical grounds.
Thanks again for your excellent discussion.
tania.sparkles
( the nickname comes from the character in Strictly Ballroom, Tina Sparkles. Before PsA I was a ballroom dancer)
Sparkles, it was the exact same for me. Strict elimination diet and food journal and always watching is what got me off my medications and inflammation markers clear in blood testing. Only in the past two months I feel 100 percent in my joints - no tightness or swelling at all. It is totally individual as pollyana said. I tried all the diets but there is always something I can't have. There were so much benefit that I kept at and am glad I did. I have to be totally gluten, dairy and soy free - these ones are forever (and never can let them in) but I get to play with so much more that I couldn't handle at the beginning. I choose very low sugar and low glycemic foods as I think my blood sugars aren't great - just my guess. It is frustrating there aren't tests or studies on such but if you look up fasting and arthritis you will see find many papers on the subject. Problem is you can only fast for so long.
Got an interesting book written by the nutritionist Patrick Holford called 'Say No To Arthritis' which has some good information about food intolerances and approaches to using diet and supplements etc to help switch off inflammation. You can have a look inside and at the contents on Amazon:
I did have an extensive food and drink intolerance test done, it flagged up only eggs and brazil nuts which I then excluded from my diet without any noticeable benefit ..... but that may just be me!!!!!!!
The Feingold elimination diet which is used for ADD/ADHD - eliminating all sources of salicylates indicates that during the detoxing phase (4-6-8 weeks) there may be a point where the individual might have symptoms increase temporarily. That being said, it might take several weeks to see whatever benefit you are looking for.
Our family has always been clean eaters, however we thought we would give up meat and dairy and see how we feel. No problem switching from coffee to green tea, my husband made the switch a few weeks back. Also adding daily exercise (when I can) and meditation into our daily routine. This year I plan on focusing on only positive, regardless of what happens with this disease. This past year has been tough and I need to keep focused on positive things