Can anyone tell me what causes PsA flares?
This is a really broad question, and I wasn’t clear if you were asking for a biological cause, or a more general question. So the short answer is inflammation.
But at a given moment, it could be due to a lot of different reasons, and over time your flare triggers may vary. Some people have flares caused by stress, or by having been ill. My flares are typically related to change in seasons.
Did this help any?
I wish I knew! For me, I know that stress causes flares or if I get overtired. Also, I've done several elimination diets and found that fresh tomatoes, green pepper and chili peppers cause a big-time flare! I can eat them cooked but not fresh.
My flares seem to be related to being sick and/or being under significant stress. I haven't discovered any diet-related triggers, but I haven't played around too much with my diet, either.
If we only knew for sure......we could probably stop PsA dead in its tracks! But, one thing for me, seems weird but I always wondered about this. I think too much sugar is bad. When I had neuropathy in my feet really bad (now it's only a little bad) it seemed that when I ate more sweets--especially ice cream--the neuropathy would be worse. Maybe it was just coincidental, and unfortunately I'm quite addicted to having at least one sweet treat each day; otherwise I'd try giving up sugar to see if it made a difference.
Thank you!! It's interesting that it's different for everyone....I guess its whatever triggers your body to get inflamed. Obviously we all want to cut down on these..... but it's hard to know what triggers them, especially when you're busy living life and not paying attention to things. Funny how once you feel okay, you tend to pick up old habits and end up slipping back. I think for me, I start taking on too much, get overstressed, then start staying up way too late to get control of things, and then get stopped dead in my tracks. So I guess not sleeping is probably the biggest problem.