Effective Home Remedies for Arthritis

People throughout history have found that there are various remedies that one may create in the comfort of the home in order to effectively treat certain medical diseases and conditions. There are millions of people that have arthritis around the world. Many people with arthritis do not have medical insurance, or the financial means to acquire medical help to assist them in living life easily with their condition. For these individuals, there are many effective home remedies. Here, you will find many of the effective home remedies for arthritis that have proven successful to many people for numerous years.

An effective and common home remedy for arthritis is consuming garlic. Garlic has been known to alleviate the symptoms of swelling and inflammation for hundreds of years. There are many ways that you can consume garlic. You may purchase garlic pills at your local health food store, or you may choose to cook with garlic. Many people simply sprinkle garlic over their food once it is prepared. However you choose to ingest garlic, it is an important factor is reducing the pain that is associated with swelling in arthritis.

An effective home remedy for arthritis is potato juice. You simply make a juice from potatoes and then consume the juice. Many older arthritis patients bring this home remedy for arthritis to us from many generations of effective use. It is believed that potatoes play an effective role in eliminating the pain that is associated with arthritis. You may also choose to implement more potatoes into your daily diet to reduce the symptoms that are associated with arthritis.

An effective home remedy for arthritis includes creating a rice bag to alleviate inflammation and reduce pain that is a result of inflammation. This is a basic bag of rice that you can create using a strong material. Many people simply take an old sock, pour in a large amount of rice, and tie the sock into a tight knot. The bag can then be placed in a microwave for about a minute. Once the bag is done in the microwave, you can apply it to swollen and/or sore joints. The heat is the same as a heating bag, only inexpensive. This is a great method for alleviating pain with arthritis.

The next effective home remedy for arthritis is quite simple and can be done by anyone. This is simply to soak in a hot bath. The heat that the water contains will help to effectively soothe the symptoms of arthritis by soothing inflammation and providing more freedom in joint movement. Many people may even place a small amount of vinegar in the water to help sooth the pain of arthritis. If you are comforted by cool water, you may choose to sit in a tub of cool water rather than warm water.

There are many effective home remedies for arthritis. You can choose one, or all. The most important aspect of the home remedy is that it provides relief to you.

What Are Palindromic Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms

Palindromic rheumatoid arthritis disease is whereby you experience periodic episodes of pain, swelling, warmth, and stiffness of joints. You have recurrent attacks of transient inflammation in and around the joint. The pain is usually focused on two or three joints. The pain can be very severe and it is difficult to find relief.

Palindromic Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms

Palindromic rheumatoid arthritis is usually characterized by episodic articular, or periarticular pain. Joints that are affected are usually your fingers and knees. The pain may be intense but it does not stay for more than two or three days. The attacks can end as fast as they begin.
You can easily spot the specific pattern in these recurrent episodes of pain. In 60% of the cases of palindromic rheumatoid arthritis, pain-free periods may last for several weeks or months. In some cases, these attacks recur after years.

Rheumatoid factors in Palindromic Rheumatoid Arthritis

There are certain rheumatoid factors that may be present in some of the Palindromic rheumatoid arthritis patients. Some these rheumatoid factors include:

* It is the large joints that are most commonly afflicted in the recurrent episodes of attack.

* However, in the swelling of the periarticular tissues such as heel pads and finger pads, soft tissues are also involved.

* Aside from pain and swelling, the Palindromic rheumatoid arthritis patient may feel nodules just below the skin in subcutaneous tissues.

* Blood tests: If they indicate an elevation of the ESR (Erythrocyte sedimentation rate) and CRP (C-reactive protein) level, it is a rheumatoid factor.

Treatment for Palindromic Rheumatoid Arthritis

It is difficult to treat palindromic rheumatoid arthritis. One of the main reasons is attributed to the transient nature of the episodes of pain and attack.

Even the anti-inflammatory medicines may not be very effective. However, what is usually prescribed are disease-modifying drugs such as hydroxyxhloroquine or methotrexate for Palindromic rheumatoid arthritis patients.

In all these cases, the treatment is symptomatic. As such, they do not address the root cause of palindromic rheumatoid arthritis. More research is now being conducted for this special form of rheumatoid arthritis disease. Hopefully, with more light shed on this disease, there can be a cure some day.

Which Fruit and Vegetable Juices Relieve Arthritis Pain?

Arthritis is a growing disease in this country (over 41 million Americans are afflicted), and many rely on drugs and surgery as a cure. The disease, arthritis, covers actually over 100 rheumatic diseases (inflation of the joints). The two most common forms are osteoarthritis (cartilage deterioration of the hand and foot), and rheumatoid arthritis (the auto-immune system breaks down causing inflammation of the joints).

Arthritis differs from other diseases in that it is not always chronic; it could flare up some days and remain subdued on others. Flare-ups are generally related to weather conditions, such as barometric pressure and cold temperatures.

If you suffer from arthritis, it is generally recommended that you avoid the following: "nightshade" vegetables (vegetables that grow at night, not during the day), such as potatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes; tobacco; coffee; caffeinated tea; salt; artificial colors; and preservatives.

Conventional medical theory says there is no cure for arthritis; only treatments to reduce the pain and inflammation (such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and a supplement called glucosamine). These provide short-term relief, but create long-term problems such as deterioration of the liver and stomach.

There are surgical procedures available including joint replacement. But these should represent the last resort. Any surgical procedure is a high risk approach, which could result is less than optimal outcomes.

Of growing interest amongst homeopathic doctors is the consumption of juices from certain fruits and vegetables. (See "Natural Physicians Healing Therapies" by Mark Stengler). Juices which contain phytonutrients help the body to regenerate cells, especially around joints. Vitamin C is also helpful, since it contains an antioxidant, which aids in the reduction of inflammation and swelling of the joints.

A List of Fruits and Vegetables

The following is a partial list of fruits and vegetables that could alleviate the symptoms of arthritis.

Black Cherry Juice: 2 glasses daily.
Vegetables containing anti-inflammatory nutrients: parsley; broccoli; carrots; apples; pineapple; ginger. Try mixing these together for maximum benefit.
Fish Oil: at least 3 grams daily (consult a physician) for at least 12 weeks.

A daily diet of juices (fruit and vegetable) will help prevent arthritis. As the saying goes: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

An excellent juicer is the Sharper Image Super Juicer. It is easy to use, easy to clean, high quality (700 watt motor), and very efficient juice extraction. This juicer is priced under $100, and is an excellent choice towards living a healthy life through juicing.

Eliminating Certain Foods From the Diet Can Reverse Arthritis

It has been found over the years that eliminating certain foods from the diet and including others can help you eat away arthritis.

This is one of the good news messages out there of the quick growth of healing called alternative or natural healing medicine.

Looking To Alternative Methods

People today are taking a closer look at healing through alternatives methods to the tune of 20 billion dollars annually. The thought wave is the high cost of drugs and their side effects in the treatment, with the many different side effects, is not worth the cost or trouble when severe damage may be done. Natural healing medicine is a lot less expensive and there are no side effects in most cases when taken as directed.

The Arthritis Foundation

The Arthritis Foundation for many years has been warning the public that arthritis is an incurable disease and only by using what they recommend can symptoms be suppressed. They tell the public that the disease is always there ready to flare up at any time. To make you feel even worse if you have it the Arthritis Foundation tells us the the disease will be epidemic in the future unless proper funding actions are taken now to limit its impact.

Rheumatologists Say

According to rheumatologists associated with the foundation the cause of the disease remains unclear, while only theories and not fact continue to mount. Arthritis today has become a collective name for the hundred or so many different varieties of arthritis. According to the foundation there are no drugs out there today that can cure the disease. Perhaps they are making these dreadful predictions to keep the research money rolling in and their jobs secure.

The Arthritis Foundation admits that people who are over weight provokes osteoarthritis and includes fish oils, fasting and food allergy as possible treatments for arthritis. They flatly state, however, no diet or food has any important beneficial or causative effect on the disease of arthritis.

Much Information Emerges

Much new information began to emerge in the late 1970's from research institutions, medical centers and universities that has made the informational seeking public re-evaluate almost everything we previously knew about the destructive disease. This intensive research continues today and finally its ideas are sinking into the conventional wisdom of arthritic treatment.

Today there has been convincing clinical proof from various branches of medicine that various foods are a contributing cause of arthritic disease. More importantly there is now convincing evidence that healthy joints are dependent on gastrointestinal health and well being.

Double Blind Study

There was a double blind study done in late 1979 by Dr. Anthony Conte, a Pittsburg nutritionist, and his associate Dr. Marshall Mandell, a well know allergist, that provide evidence that arthritis can be in may cases, an allergy related disease that can be treated by simply avoiding certain common foods.

Another research study was done by a Dr. Robert Stroud, a prominent rheumatologist at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, stating that patients with arthritic disease respond very well when certain foods are completely eliminated from their diet. He also discovered that during a fast arthritic symptoms completely clear up and become non-existent. This should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that arthritis is food related. Unfortunately you cannot fast forever.

Expansion On The Food Allergy Theory

In recent years scientists have expanded on the food allergy theory using diet to treat rheumatoid arthritis. In an ongoing experiment Drs. L.G. Darlington and N.W.Ramsey from Epsom General Hospital in England took 100 patients and treated them to a special diet only treatment. After 7 1/2 years patients were still doing well with most signs of rheumatoid arthritis gone. The doctors also found the foods you eat can influence your digestive tract, the bacteria in your gut and inflammation, all of which ultimately affect arthritis.

New Information Found

What has been found in the last decade is that arthritis is not the incurable disease we once believed. Doctors aand scientists today are now saying that many forms of arthritis are aggravated by foods we eat. While food allergies do not cause arthritis, they may, along with poor eating habits and genetic susceptibility, encourage your body to attack its own joints.

Other studies have drawn a connection between leaky gut syndrome and autoimmune disorders, like rheumatoid arthritis. Some arthritic individuals have sieve like gastrointestinal tracts that allow partially digested food to seep into their own bloodstream. This is how food allergies and possibly allergy to your own body, called autoimmunity, happens.

Conclusion

This confirms what folk healers have said for years, that certain health destroying foods are a primary reason for arthritis. By replacing them with certain health restorative foods, we can encourage remission of this disease together with elimination of stiffness, pain, and inflammation.

Heart Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis: Limiting the Risks

You may have seen some of the articles and research, which show that people with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) have a higher risk of developing Heart Disease. This may have you worried and thinking you'll have to take yet another medication. There's good news though; you may not need any medication to prevent or control Heart Disease.

If you haven't heard the news already, people have been stopping and even reversing their Heart Disease simply by changing their diet. Dr. Dean Ornish has been doing this for years and has written several books, including Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. Dr. T. Colin Campbell also wrote a great book called The China Study where he discusses his extensive research on how diet affects illnesses like Heart Disease and autoimmune diseases.

These doctors and other experts have proven how effective a plant based diet, void of meat, fish, and dairy, are in creating health. While changing to a plant based diet can be difficult let's take a look at some of the benefits.

1. Lower cholesterol levels in vegetarians and vegans vs those who eat animal products: Avg American Cholesterol = 210; Avg American Vegetarian's Cholesterol = 161; Avg American Vegan's Cholesterol = 133


2. Lower rates of Heart Disease in countries who eat little to no animal products


3. Lower rates of Arthritis in countries who eat little to no animal products


4. Lower rates of cancer in countries who eat little to no animal products

Those are some pretty compelling reasons to change to a plant based diet, however Vegetarian and Vegan are a couple of terms that can be intimidating. You may have some questions or concerns beyond how healthy it is. Here are some of the thoughts I had when switching to Vegetarian, and now to a Vegan diet:

• Will I ever be able to eat at a restaurant again? Most restaurants have at least a couple of Vegetarian items on their menus. You may be more limited in your choices, but you'll certainly be able to go out to eat. As a Vegan, there are fewer options available. Sometimes you just need to ask for no mayo or no cheese. There are more restaurants offering Vegan options though, such as at hotels and casinos owned by Steve Wynn, who now requires a Vegan menu at all of his restaurants. I also recommend trying Thai, Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Mexican restaurants, they typically have several Vegetarian and even Vegan options.


• What do I say when people ask why? I've personally given up meat, and am in the process of giving up dairy because I feel better when I eat this way. Some people do it for animal rights reasons while others to be more "green". I've found that I don't really have to defend my choice very much. It's hard for someone to argue how something makes me feel.


• How do I eat this way at home? No meat Monday is a growing trend and can be a good place to start. Taking one or two days of the week to prepare new meals with new ingredients is not as overwhelming as going "cold turkey" and will help you get used to meals without meat. You can even find tons of Vegetarian and Vegan recipes on websites and blogs all over the internet. As you become more comfortable with meatless meals, it will be easier to give up meat altogether.

There's more and more evidence on how effective Vegetarian and Vegan diets are in preventing and reversing Heart Disease. If you're concerned and want to limit your risk of developing Heart Disease, give a meatless lifestyle a try. It's a much safer option than drugs or surgery and once you get the ordering and cooking down, it's easy to follow.

What Food is Bad For Arthritis?

The links between diet and arthritis have been the subject of a lot of talk, but very little conclusive advice can be found on what food is bad for arthritis. The recommendations may differ among different types of arthritis, and for the most part, foods that aggravate arthritis may vary on a case by case basis. In the end, each sufferer from arthritis must be responsible for cutting out foods which make the condition worse.

For most types of arthritis, including osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, there is no real set of dietary instructions. In the case of gout, a low purine diet is advised, and sufferers should avoid meat, beans and alcohol. There is, however, plenty of unproven advice on the relationship between food and arthritis. Many recommend avoiding foods belonging to the nightshade family, such as tomatoes and peppers. Others recommend cutting down on packaged snack foods and reducing consumption of saturated fats, which often requires cutting down on meat consumption. Some feel better when they remove glutens from their diet, and others when they eliminate dairy products.

While none of these recommendations has been supported by scientific evidence, doctors recognize that an individual may find that certain foods can aggravate arthritis. On an individual basis, these common culprits can be foods to test with to see if elimination improves the condition. For those who suffer from arthritis, figuring out which foods aggravate the problem can take some real work. There are no universals, but certain foods are common aggravators.

The relationship between diet and arthritis can be very individual, but some general recommendations can be made. Maintaining a healthy diet is important, and weight loss can help ease some pain of arthritis. Losing weight can be especially effective in osteoarthritis of the knee. Omega-3 fatty acids can help limit arthritis inflammation. Limiting consumption of fat, cholesterol, sugar, and alcohol is a good idea overall.

Effects of Rheumatoid Arthritis on the Body

Rheumatoid arthritis is a condition that causes chronic inflammation of the joints such as knees, hips, ankles and hands. It is accompanied by high levels of pain and can cause severe disability issues. More likely to strike women than men, the condition is commonly occurring in those over the age of 40 although it also affects much younger people. It affects about 1% of the population and can be dependent on a host of factors that include weight, environment, smoking and genetics.

Contrary to common belief, the affects of rheumatoid arthritis go beyond merely affecting joints and causing restrictions on a person's mobility. In fact the condition can have significant and widespread effects on the whole body. One such effect can be seen on skin with the development of rheumatoid nodules. These are lumps of tissues that can occur, usually under the skin in areas such as the fingers, forearms, elbows and heels. They can even occur in the lungs and heart or appear as ulcers.

Rheumatoid arthritis's effects on the body can be detected in the eyes as well. Inflammations in the eyes, especially in the white area, can turn the eye red and cause pain. Vision loss and an increase risk of Sjogren's syndrome are some of the other ways the disease can take its toll on the eyes. The heart and blood vessels are yet another set of organs that could be affected by this condition and thereby place people under heightened risk of cardiovascular diseases, heart attacks and stroke. Inflammation of blood vessels is another common complication that could also prove to be of a serious nature.

The effects of rheumatoid arthritis can also extend to blood cells. It can affect the body by lowering levels of red blood cells, causing a condition known as anemia, which in turn causes fatigue, accelerated heart beat, dizziness and insomnia. Lung problems are yet another way in which we can witness the effects of rheumatoid arthritis on the body. Inflammation of the lungs that can be attributed to the condition may cause pleuritis and fluid collection. Some complications that may arise as a result include collapsed lungs, infections and coughing up of blood. What is worse is the tendency for some rheumatoid arthritis medication to cause lung problems that could result in shortness of breath, cough and fever.

Most medication available for its treatment tends to suppress the immune system and this could in turn cause complications by increased disease and illness arising from a suppressed immune system.

Life can be difficult at best for those living with this condition. The constant pain coupled with the inability to move about freely and enjoy life as well as the pain and difficulty in getting the most basic chores done without pain or restrictions can, and often does, lead to high levels of depression in a significant percentage of people living with this condition. Thus rheumatoid arthritis doesn't only take a toll on a person's body; it also takes a toll on a person's mental health.