Food And Arthritis

Add the RIGHT foods to your diet to REDUCE arthritic pain and inflammation.
Include the WRONG foods to your diet and INCREASE arthritic pain and inflammation.
My choice? A life-journey based on a low-oil whole-food plant based diet.
Whatever your current state of health, make yourself healthier - you deserve it. Start your plant based diet journey today.

Thursday 24 November 2016

Are we betrayed?

Though I have no financial interest, I am pleased to circulate the following press release by Dr Tom O'Bryan:
"Dr. Tom O'Bryan and I invite you to his FREE #docuseries on #Autoimmunity, #BetrayalSeries ... Register as my guest: http://bit.ly/BetrayalSeries ... The world's leading minds say autoimmune disease is behind ALL disease, even cardiovascular disease, MS, brain disorders, CANCER, depression, suicide... Autoimmune disease CAN be reversed and put into remission. THIS is the info desperately needed."
My reasons for doing this is because so much of what he says in his series Betrayal follows my own path of recovery from a totally debilitating auto-immune disease, in my case Rheumatoid Arthritis.  If I had followed the recommendation of my doctor and rheumatologist I might be taking a considerable portfolio of drugs by now.  Consequentially I might be looking to a future of drugs and more drugs, each one removing the goodness from my body.  If I was lucky, my body would stabilise, but as with so many people with RA, struggle to find a blend of drugs that keep my RA under control. I have already had approval and indeed recommended to have both knee joints replaced.

Instead I took responsibility for my own health.  I researched solutions that worked for me and thus gradually changed my diet to a whole-food plant-based diet which is also oil-free, gluten-free and nightshade plant free.  This was the diet recommended by Clint Paddison, and he and other people on this diet have helped me with considerable advice and support during some very difficult periods, and continue to help me to this day.

After seven months my body has become healthy enough for me to start Bikram Yoga.  And now just over a month later I can walk normally and live an increasingly normal life.  I am not yet totally without drugs - that day will come after my next visit to my Rheumatologist.

Do I feel betrayed by the UK's medical system?  I'll let you, dear reader, decide that.  All I will say is that this morning I looked at my knees in the mirror and I thought, "wow! Not pretty perhaps, but when you have had knees like I have, the only word is WOW!  These are my knees, and slowly but surely they are regaining full health."

Thursday 3 November 2016

Is Bikram my future?

Okay, I have been waiting to blog about this but wanted to wait until I had evidence.  Well I have now had my tenth session of Bikram Yoga.  Most people know what Yoga is, even if they have not experienced it.  Bikram Yoga is Yoga in a form that is ideally suited to people with Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Each yoga session lasts for 90 minutes and takes place in a hot room.  Each session has exactly the same twenty-six postures.

Bikram Yoga is not a replacement for dietary changes.  Without having adopted a whole-food plant based diet I would never have been able to get my health to a sufficient standard to be able to attend a single session.  However RA will cause significant damage to the body for most people who suffer it.  Sometimes that damage is in the form of distorted limbs.  In my case, due to arthritis I have not been able to kneel properly for forty years.  Also I have not been able to straighten my right elbow.  The last year's RA has also meant that using my right elbow can cause a searing pain.

So about three weeks ago I felt my health was good enough to get me out of the house.  I thus left and went to my first Bikram session.  Sadly due to traffic problems I was five minutes late and so advised to come back tomorrow!  The next day I went to my first session and I have not looked back.

This is not to say I am having some kind of miraculous recovery, rather that I am perceiving minute but persistent improvements.  When I say "minute" I really mean that - they are tiny.  But improvements are being felt on several fronts.

And so at last I wanted to blog about my reasons for continuing with Bikram Yoga as I feel at this stage.  So here they are:
  1. The heat really helps. Just being in the heat is nice, but also it helps improve flexibility through the class. It also brings out that sweat.
  2. The sweat really helps. If Rheumatoid Arthritis is about anything it is about impurities in the blood inside your body. Sweating many of those out gives my body a spring clean. After a session it really feels like a cleanse that means less pain in the hours ahead.
  3. The relaxation really helps. Right now I neither get up or down to the floor without assistance, but once down, and despite pain in my right elbow I could lie down for a long time...
  4. The breathing feels great. Not just the initial pranayama session and the ending "doggy" pant (as I call it) but the continual need to breath steadily helps my chest enormously.  Apparently good breathing also reduces acidosis in the body: and that means less pain!
  5. "It helps the digestion." Words from several Bikram teachers affirmed, not least by my improved bowel movements, all mean less pain!
  6. The same 26 postures wherever and whenever. It is really good to know what you are letting yourself get into. In my first session I cried inside with a mixture of embarrassment and fear. I stuck through and now calmly read my body, listen to instructions about the posture goals and feel progress. I have tried two venues (Warwick and Oxford, UK) and it is a great relief to know the experience is exactly the same.
  7. Taking time to concentrate on me. Every beginners Bikram session is 90 minutes long. I try to get to class early to benefit from the heat as much as possible and I don't hurry away. Mind you with my stiffness I could not hurry if I tried!
  8. It's working. I cannot put my finger on exactly what is happening to me, but after 10 sessions I feel something very positive is happening inside my body. But let me try one...
  9. I feel warmer. I have felt cold over the last months. However now my circulation must be improving because I feel warmer in myself.
  10. A Daily Dose Does Best. I will be doing 4 days at least most weeks. My body needs that, no joke. Missing some days already has felt bad. Bikram is good if you travel because there are centres in or near most major towns and cities. And they all give you exactly the same experience.
  11. Drink the water. With Bikram you simply must drink water, before, during and after. Water is so purifying that anything that encourages that regime must be a good thing.
  12. What about other yogas? The heat makes me a Bikram person. Bikram teachers are very skilled and know exactly the pain I am going through.  They make sure I don't do too much or the wrong thing.  They also give great personal advice on alternative stretches I can achieve.
  13. Everyone at class is so kind and helpful. Each person concentrates on their own frailties and strengths and do not worry about my issues. They just express full-some support for what I am trying to achieve. At my last Warwick session I was told, "I was an inspiration." Not bad for someone who cannot do a single posture!