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Alternative medications for rheumatoid arthritis
I have mentioned this on several threads in the last year and promised an update when I know my ongoing blood scores. Those are now through and I am firmly in remission, both on blood work and in symptoms. CRP 2, ESR 6.
I had one breakthrough flare in November when I had a very stressful incident at home, had the normal human raised cortisol in autumn and had a reaction to liquorice root that causes kidneys to create cortisol all at thee same time. My CRP and ESR shot up and one knee flared big time.
I am palindromic so my flares are always short and in one joint at a time, but used to occur every few days. I had cutaneous vasculitis alongside and that is also completely in remission.
The substances that I take have all been properly clinically tested to help with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic inflammation. They are:
MSM 4g a day
Standardised 1.5% alkaloids cats claw 1g
95% pure curcumin with black pepper extract 1g
Liquorice root 2g
Like many people I have found that the glycyrrhizin in liquorice root sent up my blood pressure and caused my kidneys to create cortisol. My blood pressure came down again 48 hours after swapping to a glycyrrhizin free version. I'm continuing to take liquorice root because I've only had to take famotidine on 3 days in the last 6 months, when I was on 40mg a day of omeprazole for serious acid reflux problems.
I hope this information helps others. I started these drugs when I found out that I couldn't take hydroxychloroquine and got worse quickly when I had very a big gap before anyone would talk to me about immunosuppression with methotrexate. Now, thanks to the overloaded NHS, I've been able to prove that I don't need immunosuppression at all.
*Moderator Note: All medication, treatment and supplement regimens should be discussed with your care provider.*
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@cptrayes It must have taken you a long time to finalize that these non-prescription medications work for you. How long have you had RA? Were your doctors pleased/not pleased with your decision to go natural? Let’s hope that these medications continue to work for you!
@becsbuddy Hi.
I've had RA for at least 5 years but it only got diagnosed a year ago. I didn't know what it was, and because I'm palindromic and crazily stoic about pain, it was gone again before I could bother about getting to to a doctor with it. My very early cataracts and hearing loss are quite probably a symptom and if so I've had it 15 years. It really ramped up 2 years ago, with flares every week, and triggered me into getting a diagnosis, which was a slam dunk on my blood scores.
The supplement idea started with a comment about MSM being the only thing that worked for a friend's mother, and took quite a few hours digging out the research but the Internet is great these days. I did a few blood tests before I settled on the MSM dose that I originally had too low.
I'm thrilled to find that the main marker for whether it's working CRP in blood is now available as a pinprick lateral flow test from Amazon for £8 . It's accuracy is high, it's not very precise but it will tell me if I'm getting ill again without sending blood to a lab. I ran one on Monday and it gave a score of 0-10 and my bloods drawn on Tuesday gave 2.
My private Rheumatologist told me they know how MSM works and why but they aren't allowed to prescribe it because it has no licence. My NHS rheumatologist said "what's MSM?" and clearly thinks I'm currently in spontaneous remission and will be crawling back to him soon. I'm about to write a letter telling him I'm done with his department, they are so overload their service had been dreadful and if I do relapse I wouldn't go back to him anyway.
Then again, if there hadn't been such terrible delays in being seen Id never have realised that I had other options and I'd be on methotrexate now with a compromised immune system and constant trips to have blood collected for testing. Every cloud ......
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If you do mind sharing, which brands are you using for these medications?
MSM 4g a day
Standardised 1.5% alkaloids cats claw 1g
95% pure curcumin with black pepper extract 1g
Liquorice root 2g (with no glycyrrhizin)
@altabiznet are you in the UK? My brands are UK only I'm afraid.
@cptrayes
I am in the US. Thank you for responding. Best regards.
@cptrayes
Do you take these 4 medications all at once, or a couple of hours apart? Do you take them with food?
I take half with yoghurt in the morning and half a few hours after dinner at night.
You need a version of curcumin with black pepper extract in, otherwise your kidneys will remove it too fast.
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