Rheumatoid Arthritis Natural Joint Pain Relief
10 Natural Ways To Reduce Your Pain from Rheumatoid Arthritis
Let’s face it – Pain Sucks. As a previous sufferer of chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis I certainly have had my share. Pain becomes like the annoying friend who hangs around all the time and won’t go away. Even worse, that friend likes to spend most time with you first thing in the morning when you’ve just woken up.
If you’re suffering with RA then it’s important to know a bunch of great techniques to reduce pain without using drugs. Many of these techniques you will never hear from your Rheumatologist, since they have no schooling in nutrition or holistic healing. They are good at giving you pills, which you need to take if you’ve exacerbating your conditions through poor diet and lifestyle.
Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of those diseases that scares the life out of people. Doctors tell you there is no cure and that you must go on RA drugs immediately to ‘catch the disease early’ and you’ll typically be on drugs for life. I certainly took objection to this and spent 5 years piecing information together and working out what causes this disease and how to stop it! After finally achieving perfect blood test results and getting off all medication I have concluded the following about RA:
Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune disease that arises due to wide range of contributing factors in the digestive system. These include a perforated intestinal lining (‘leaky gut’), an overgrowth of negative microforms (such as yeast and bad bacteria) and too few health bacteria (probiotics), a diet too high in acid-forming foods, a depleted intestinal mucosa and low resources of enzymes. As a result, folks with RA commonly have food allergies which trigger their RA and are often unaware of the viscous cycle. To make matters worse, almost all NSAID’s used for RA cause more damage to the gut wall. DMARDS alter the disease activity, but do nothing to help it’s cause, and the side effects are numerous.
This blog is 10 natural ways to get joint pain relief from Rheumatoid Arthritis:
1. Do not eat sugar
All forms of simple sugars feed negative microforms in your intestines. This includes yeast and bad bacteria. By eating sugar you are allowing the proliferation of these tiny cultures that are crowding out your ‘healthy’ bacteria (sometimes called ‘probiotics’) which are one of the most under appreciated components of our wellbeing. All forms of simple sugars found in candy, cake, soda’s etc must be avoided. If you are truly hard-core about wanting to get results, then also avoid fruit for a period of time. Fruit is not essential to the diet as long as you get the same (or more) nutrition from other sources. Green leafy veggies below are the ultimate in nutritional sources
2. Stop eating after 6pm
Sound like something your mum would tell you? Well mum was right. Even for a healthy person, digestion places the biggest burdon on the body’s resources. When you have RA you have a depleted amount of enzymes in your body. Enzymes are all of the catalysts that make all the cellular activity in your body work and function properly. Without enzymes you couldn’t breath, think, move or read this sentence. From an RA perspective, we desperately need enzymes to break down our food into small particles to prevent larger, undigested molecules to enter our bloodstream through our ‘leaky gut’. When we stop eating after 6pm we reduce the burden on the body and allow our digestive enzymes to be converted into metabolic enzymes to repair, heal and energise the rest of our body. I suggest you make friends with gentle hunger.
3. Drink copious amounts of water
Water is the basis of life for the human body. Your muscles are 75% water, your blood is 82% water, your lungs are 90% water and your brain is 76% water. Even your bones are 25% water. Dr Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, author of ‘Your Body’s many cries for water” says that Rheumatoid arthritic joints and their pain can be viewed, in part, as an indicator of water deficiency in the affected joint cartilage surfaces. Arthritis pain is a local thirst signal of the body. Unlike bone cells, which are immersed in calcium deposits, the cartilage cells are water-dense. Inside the joint structure the actively growing blood cells in the bone marrow take priority over the cartilage for the available water. So to adequately hydrate the cartilage, an abundance of water should be available. The best water to drink is water that is naturally alkaline, since it helps gently shift the body back towards health and away from acidity. It also replenishes some minerals to the body. Avoiding tap water is also important since most city water supplies have added flourine and chlorine which kill your ‘good’ intestinal bacteria.
4. Eat Salad like you’re a crazy person
Salad will set you free. Leafy green veggies are going to save your life and reduce your pain. Green leafy veggies like bok choy, kale, spinach, cos lettuce and so on are the world’s most nutrient-dense foods. They are high in Potassium, which is essential for RA sufferers (see my blog Potassium and Rheumatoid Arthritis). These plant-based foods also contain chlorophyll, which is almost identical in molecular structure to haemoglobin in human blood. The only difference is the central atom (in chlorophyll the central atom is magnesium and in haemoglobin it is iron). This means that the body finds it easy to create new red blood cells from eating foods rich in chlorophyll, which is essential if you are anemic. These leafy greens are also full of enzymes, allowing for easy digestion of the food which they accompany as well as replentishing you ‘enzyme bank’ a little bit meal by meal. Further, greens are the favourite food for your healthy bacteria, so you can feed your little guys naturally and cheaply and avoid expensive and less-effective probiotic supplements.
5. Sprout it up hard
Sprouts (such as alfalfa sprouts and mung bean sprouts) are the richest known sources of enzymes. These will be a wonderfully cheap alternative to taking enzyme supplements. They should be included in any long-term plan to recover from RA. Alternate your sprouts each day since sprouts contain alkaloids, which, if eaten in very large quantities can cause some unwanted symptoms such as headache etc (but nothing as bad as RA itself!) So just mix up your sprouts. Clover sprouts and onion sprouts are both good too.
6. Avoid Fatty foods
Studies have shown a link between high fat foods and the immune process. “A fat-free diet produced complete remission in 6 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Pain and swelling returned to the patients within 24 to 72 hours after they consumed a high-fat meal such as chicken, cheese, safflower oil, beef, or coconut oil. The authors concluded, “…dietary fats in amounts normally eaten in the American diet cause the inflammatory joint changes seen in rheumatoid arthritis.” [Lucas CP, Power L. Dietary fat aggravates active rheumatoid arthritis. Clinical Research 1981;29:754A]. It wasn’t until I eliminated high-fat foods from my diet that my RA went away entirely (along with all the other changes of course). I’m talking about not just obvious bad fats like animal fats, but also plant based fats such as those found in avocados and olives. All fats, including oils (which are 100% fat) such as olive oil, flaxseed oil, fish oil and so on needed to go for me.
7. Avoid Coffee
Coffee will keep you sick. It’s terribly acidifying for the body. It has no nutrients whatsoever. It also dehydrates you. I’m not sure which of these three is most detrimental to the sufferer of RA but I know that each of them should be enough for you to never drink Coffee (or Decaf) ever again. In fact, all caffeine should be eliminated. Just get more and more water into your body. It’s a no-brainer. Your body needs water, not some acidifying addictive drug in a mug. A good alternative if you must have a hot drink is home-made ginger tea or caffeine-free Rooibos Tea that has some minor health benefits. Obviously I don’t need to tell you to avoid alcohol or cigarettes, right?! Good 
8. Measure each joint regularly
What you keep track of improves. It’s one of those interesting phenoneonms in life that where your attention flows, energy goes. I found that by measuring my range of motion and pain levels in my joints each day that I was able to make improvements to them. By monitoring each joint I was able to quickly intervene when they were worsening and feel great about myself when I was seeing them improve. Quantifyable, measurable results for each joint is a huge motivator to tell you when you’re getting well by implementing changes 1-7.
9. Go easy on the NSAID’s
NSAID’s are Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory drugs. Check the packet of any pills you are taking and see if your brand falls under this category. Most of them contribute to leaky-gut, thus worsening your condition [Baillieres Clin Rheumatol 10:165, 1996]
10. Get a Coach
The quickest way to success with anything is to find out what someone else has done and ‘model’ yourself on them. Success leaves clues. If you pay enough attention to the successful work of others than soon enough you will replicate their results. I’d be happy to assist you in getting well. I have a whole 120-page best-selling eBook for download at on this front page which includes the ultimate Rheumatoid Arthritis Diet that has tremendously helped 100’s of people now in over 30 countries. I want you to get off the terrible RA roundabout and get back on your path to wellness again. Don’t listen to to the non-believers!
‘The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it’ – Chinese Proverb
Thanks for reading! For more information watch the whole video on the home page – Rheumatoid Arthritis Program
Upwards and onwards in love, laughter and light. May your body continue to heal, your mind be at peace and your future rich and enlightened.
Clint Paddison
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Disclaimer: Do not take this information as personal medical advice. Do not change your diet if you are ill or on medication without the advice of a qualified health care provider (your physician, for example).