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Here's a link I hope is helpful to steering you to finding improvement for daughter's RA.

Lectins are everywhere, but as this article explains, because of genetic differences, illnesses we've had (and possibly vacinations... my own idea), different new hybrids of foods and altered lectins, GMO foods, and even changes in modern eating patterns, lectins can sometimes cause autoimmue disorders. I thought this might give you something to research further in your quest to find something helpful for your daughter.

http://www.vrp.com/articles.aspx?ProdID=art2009&z

I hope it's somehow helpful to you.

Very tired right now from just getting home from a trip, but my questions would be what sorts of lectins or suspected proteins or whatever to remove all at the same time (for instance, I'd never heard lentil connected sometimes with RA until the link I gave above... could it truly be a culprit?)... then, with gluten a suspect, and of course she is already dairy free...

so my first question to search out info on would be which seem to be the most likely suspects for RA... (gluten/dairy/lentil??? / citrus/ or what?)

... and my second question would be... how long away from these possible suspects does it take to see improvement... even slight improvement.

I would want to be finding those things out... and i'm sure that's what you're working toward.

It sounds very frustrating, especially since she's already a vegan and it's just not supposed to happen.

I found in my own experience with gluten that it can take a long time to see improvements, at least in intestinal symptoms, and one would wonder whether it would be true for other conditions.

From what I've read, it seems that some people in this field think it's possible that the gluten, or at least the wheat germ lectin could cause intestinal damage in some people (with or without intestinal sypmtoms) which in turn might cause other foods... lectins/proteins or whatever, to slip into the blood stream not properly broken down, which would then ignite the immune system to begin a battle... and eventually... an autoimmune disorder might surface.

Zonulin is the thing to look up.

Again... sorry but we just got back... long trip, little sleep... I'm probably not making good sense. But I'm wondering if the usual elimination diet is the long way around, and there might be a more direct approach.

Have you emailed Dr. McDougall?

Well that has to be very frustrating for your family.

I know I've also seen stuff about people getting better within a couple of weeks... but from what I've seen on celiac boards, people responding to a gluten free diet often take months to see actual improvement, and age doesn't seem to be so much a factor. Sometimes children improve faster, but I've seen on celiac boards where children can often be slower than adults to respond to the gf diet.

I know in myself, with my problems, improvement was very slow and gradual, so much that I finally resorted to a chart to track symptoms by months... I saw improvement about every three months for 2 years. By then, things leveled off quite a bit. I'd tried going gluten free once before and thought I didn't see improvement at all, and then gave up... but on hindsight, I didn't actually ever stay gluten free long enough to notice the very gradual, stepwise improvements. Thanks to reading message boards and other celiacs' experiences, I got the idea to try again, and will alway be gald I did.

I don't know as much about RA as I do celiac disease... but I would wonder if improvement might also take some time...

This study of vegan plus gluten free for RA seems to indicate they allowed a full year for improvement in various RA scores:

http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/ ... 40/10/1175

Hang in there! You're searching for answers... and one of these days I hope you'll find them!