Happy Spring everyone!
I wanted to give a little update from my last post about joint pain medication. As a review: all regular athritis medication has failed me and the next recommended step was to try methotrexate. Methotrexate being an immune suppresing drug, I was scared. I thought long and hard about it and decided I would at least try one natural way of getting relief before jumping on the more "hardcore" medication train.
So, I cut gluten out of my diet. I had done this experiement for my eczema many years ago, and it worked to help control flare ups of that. I thought, well, why not try it for joint pain/inflammation. Along with cutting out gluten I added more anti-inflammatory foods to my diet and generally just started to eat healthier. I haven't taken any anti-inflammatory medication or any pain relievers at all.
It's been 2 months and for the first time in close to 10 years I am pain free! I am shocked. I am not one of those types of people who jump on the natural remedy bandwagon every time I see some random Facebook post about "try this smoothie for this ailment!" type deal. I work with medical professionals, I take the scientific method seriously. So, I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this "experiment" of mine, but I knew it wouldn't hurt to try.
I wanted to share this in case it helps anyone else who might be dealing with this not so fun side effect of treatment. Obviously it's not for everyone and maybe at some point this will stop helping and I'll have to think about medication again. For now, I will daydream of gluten rich pizza while eating my salads.
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