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My incentive for McDougalling is to beat my RA as fast as possible. I've been dead inside for 2 years from the drugs and anxious to get a life.

I could see at day 10 that this is really going to work but now at Days 20 -25 I feel worse. Possible reasons I can think of: The weather temps are swinging wildly here, I'm eating too much salt, I'm eating too much or I added something that's causing a reaction.

I figured I should start the elimination plan to be safe. The strange thing is that I'm not losing much weight- maybe 2 or 3 pounds. I'm NOT trying to lose weight (5'7 138 lbs. I look scary-thin at 130) but I think it's strange because I've eaten zero fruit and sugar this whole time. So I don't want to lose weight but I wonder if that's a tip off to some other problem. When I started I was eating very little variety: oatmeal, herbal tea, stevia, bown rice, quinoa, beans, few green veg and garlic salt and that's it. Then I added a ton of things (making Jeff recipes) so nightshade, little rice pasta, spices, diff vegs, etc but still zero fruit. I am a big eater and grazer I should mention and i eat a lot of salt.

Also, I wonder if there's some "get worse before you get better' thing that happens if toxins are coming out or something?

Anyway, I'll try the elimination diet unless anyone has ideas about what a sick person should do differently. I won't give up. What else is there anyway? I scanned the Dr. Furhman website and I hope his way isn't the answer. Eating veg as the centerpiece would be a set up for failure for me. This starch thing is the best. I do NOT feel deprived at all.

Leslie

Leslie, I don't have RA, but I have Psoriatic Arthritis.

Any added salt and some herbal teas are triggers for me, as is temperature and weather changes.

I also have had periods of quick weight loss, during which I felt much worse, that I now attribute to reactions to toxins stored in my fat tissues being released into my system.

I have been dealing with my arthritis with diet alone for about a year and 3 months, and although I felt noticeably better rather quickly, as time accumulates, the healing has accumulated as well, much slower than I'd prefer.

The Star McDougaller cases who healed up within weeks are not the only model for successfully dealing with an autoimmune disease with diet, but the harder situations can be frustrating and complicated.

Nightshades can really be a trigger, as can wheat, corn soy, and odd things like red leaf lettuce and carrots(triggers for me.)

My advice?

Cut out salt.

Go on the full elimination diet.
Check out this thread on the elimination diet.

Chart Everything - foods, sleep, exercise (if any) weather, temperature, and symptoms to see larger patters. Here is a link to my chart - I have updated it recently (not online yet, though) to add weather pattern tracking and pain levels (0-10)

Read these journals/ blogs of people dealing with more complicated autoimmune/inflammation issues:

Star McDougaller Burgess' Anti-itis Diet

Star McDougaller Katydid's Journal(The most relevant part to your situation is is on Page 8-9, but her Journal is excellent and full of information)

Michelle's Journal

Blue's Journal

My Journal

And if this does not help, contact John McDougall, which can be done through the phone, email or fax contact info listed on this page

He really gets back to people! Check out this thread about a similar situation!

OK, sorry for the long post. PM me if you'd like - I'd love to talk more.

Good Luck!

Thank you! Yikes, so complicated. I will keep a detailed log. I never sleep well - never occurred to me that was a symptom. I did look up the McDougall elimination diet here on the site (but then someone in the thread said they were allergic to sweet potatoes) so should i start with an even smaller list? I can do it if I have to. I'm confused about fruits too. It said "most fruits, non-citrus like..." I guess I should do a very small list there too? Maybe apples & cherries or something? I tried cutting salt for 3 days (no improvement) but now I'll do that for the whole week. I'll do whatever it takes. I'm not just determined; I'm possessed! So if you think I should start with a super short list of the very safest foods, I would love to know.

And I just looked at the Burgess link. That says to cut out all rice and do it for several weeks. That seems really different - and doesn't leave much to eat, does it? Did you do it for that long?

Leslie, I think the elimination diet is hard to start because everyone is different.

It is more rare for people to react to rice than to wheat, and for people to react to sweet potatoes than regular potatoes, but some people on the short side of the bell curve will react to odd things.

For example: vinegar, strawberries, apples, carrots, mushrooms.


I'd start with a very restricted diet for two week - using either rice or sweet potatoes as the starch, cook all fruit that you do eat, but limit them to a few, say pears, apples, blueberries or something like that, cook all veggies (not too cooked) that you eat and limit them to a few good ones to start, and avoid citrus and nightshades.

If nothing changes, switch the primary starch to the other one and see what happens. - after two weeks or more!


There is also the possibility that your RA is primarily or secondarily due to "leaky gut" and that you will react to some foods at first, whichwill be fine for you to eat in a year. And that just takes time to heal (probiotics help also- Jarrow has a vegan, allergen-free vrsion that I used at first.)

If you reacted well to the dietary change initially, and now feel worse or still bad, then it is also possible that you are finally in a healing state from all the years of whatever caused or contributed to your problem (diet, environment, who knows?) and that there is a "worse before better" thing happening.

But the most important thing to do is to start somewhere - Sweet potatoes don't work? You have some information, and that is one step closer to radiant health, free from meds!!! Cause for celebration, although it might be hard to feel celebratory at that moment.

(I have a lot of looking back, 20/20 hindsight moments about last year, where I felt like giving up and that it was all hopeless - they were hard at the time, but I am so glad I am where I am now, and I can really see the value of each and every one.)

Also - re. the salt - it might take more than three days to notice a change of any sort. It might be so gradual that it is hard to detect until you wake up one day and say, "Holy Cow! I can do such-and-such, that I couldn't do for years!" That is where charting really helps. You can see patterns that are hard to detect day-to-day.

My big aha! moments about certain foods I eliminated when I got really strict come usually when I add them back after a long period of not having them (3 months) and then I'll see how they were insidiously, but not dramatically, impacting my pain and disease activity levels.

Such good ideas. Great, I will try all those things. I'll start with brown rice as the base because I've already had aha moments on that. (Last year I told my husband "You have to stop grabbing my hand because you keep hurting me." Last week I grabbed HIS hand and squeezed it really really hard. Then I said "If you need any jars opened, you know where to come." A great moment for me. My hands are still good - just need to get the knees in line.

You helped me so much. Now I'm very excited. I'll keep a detailed log and be very slow and careful and "scientific."

and yes, I bet I do have leaky gut. A previous natural doc said that one of the many things prednisone does is to totally strip your intestines of all good bacteria. I was on 10 mg of that poison for 2+ years.

So true about the prednisone! Get on probiotics, stat! And eat cabbage - if you can. It helps the "good guys" in the gut grow back.

Also - prednisone "detox" can cause joint pains, making it so hard to get off of, and so hard to know what is what in the beginning of the elimination diet. Even if you are not still on it.

Hi Leslie
I just wanted to pop in and say hello, offer some encouragement, and say good luck. You are on the right track with an elimination diet!

I hadn't discovered McDougall yet at the time, but I used this elimination diet and it helped tremendously! It's McDougall friendly as long as you don't add animal products back in, which I did not. http://www.wholelifenutrition.net/id16.html\

After years of serious chronic pain my pain was 80% reduced after three weeks on Phase 1 of this diet! After that, I began adding foods in one at a time waiting 3 days before and after each addition. I quickly determined sensititivies to the following foods:
msg, soy, dairy, oranges, grapefruit, and possibly other food additives and preservatives. My reactions to these happen in as little as 5 minutes and include facial swelling, headaches, diarrhea, and of course, severe pain and stiffness. Dairy by far is my biggest enemy!! Too much salt in combo with dairy and gluten (ie, pizza) will swell me up and put me down for days.

Gluten took me a little longer to determine because it can take as long 2 days for me to react, but the reaction is extreme--insane muscle spasms and pain in my abdominal wall. Beer is a huge problem for me!

Nuts do not seem a problem for me but I mostly stick to raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds, since I tolerated them well in phase 1 of the elimination diet I used.

After about 5 months on the diet with much success I finally began having completely pain free days! This happened after removing coffee and alcohol in any form.

Yoga and short walks several times a day have also been incredibly important in my healing.

If you have a chance you can stop by my blog. I think Nicole provided a link above. And this is a good link to check out for those following elmination diets.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=27101

I hope any of this helps. Please keep us posted Blue

Delayed food sensitivities may not react if you only only eat the food once in four days and are only mildly intolerant to it. It can be like a dose effect, and if you get too much of it in your system at one time you will have a reaction. That does make finding the triggers a little more challenging. I am sensitive to MSG, cayenne pepper, casein, tuna and probably things that I have not discovered yet. I ate hot sauce for years so never suspected it as the culprit when I broke out for two weeks straight. I finally recalled breaking out when I put cayenne in my lemonade before. I stopped the hot sauce and no more hives. Is there something that you have been eating a lot of since the pain has increased? Go back to what you were eating before the pain worsened and look for the change. When you track your eating, include the foods four days back from pain episode.