I had Strep Throat in South America and ended up with Psoriatic Arthritis and assorted auto-immune conditions.

@kim4hope I'm really sorry to hear that you've been struggling. I've been there and it sucks. It's a shame that western medicine doesnt have all the answers. I've had luck controlling my symptoms with the gluten and I really hope that going off gluten provides you with relief. I've also done acupuncture and seen some other alternative medicine drs. I recommend thinking out of the box.

@kim4hope. I decided to try ART for my chronic pain on my right hip,thigh, knee and ankle. Active Release Technique, which you can look up on Google, basically uses deep tisue manipulation while moving various parts of your body to release muscles and nerves that have been bound together. After 3 months of PT that gave me no relief from constant and excruciating pain on my right side, I read about ART on Connect and decided to try it. After 6 sessions over 3 weeks, I was nearly completely free of pain. I still had pain at night that awoke me. I had 1 monthly followup and after that was completely without pain until about 4 days ago. In fact, I was going to cancel my second monthly followup since I didn't really need it. Unfortunately my pain returned at night primarily at night. We have been doing lots of packing all of our stuff, moving, unpacking in the last 2 weeks and I think that's caused my recurrent pain. My followup is on Wednesday of this week is something I'm looking forward to! ART has kept me from having major back surgery to fuse my L4-L5. I think you may want to try this technique since nothing has worked to relieve your pain. You should know in 2 or 3 weeks whether or not it will work for your pain. My MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds, and x-rays have never shown a problem or cause for my pain. I now know exactly the ligaments that get bound up and were released by the ART practitioner. Practitioners are usually Chiropractors who have had additional training and certification in ART. Please let us know if you decide to try it, and if it helps or not. Ill report about my followup appointment on Wednesday and if it relieves my pain again.

I hope you and others on this thread find relief and comfort for your pain. Gail B Ledesma

@gailb - Thank you, thank you, thank you! I did some searching on active release technique and see that it also has some application for lower back pain which I've been struggling with for a few years. I'm am going to give it a try in the next few days after I do some studying to figure out how to do it. Finally I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

John

thanks for the tip. i have 2 pinched nerves in my neck. amongst other things.what i do to help the pain is: i have a cord hanging from high in the closet. when i sit on a stool and pull on the ropes with both arms going each arm taking its turn up and down, up and down etc., ets. pulling hard after about 20 minutes usually the pain is gone. some times i need to do this for about 3 times a day then thank you, thank you the pain is gone. a chiropractor showed me this. he has helped me with headaches and other problems off and on.

Thank you so much for this suggestion. I plan to look into it as the pain continues! I haven't committed myself to trying gluten free yet. I just wish I knew who I should see about this as I live in a small town in central Minnesota.

I have had the same frustration through the years with dermatologists that I have seen. All just want to treat my EN with heavy prescription drugs, but never address the cause or suggest any changes in diet.