coping with rheumatoid arthritis

[hungheikwan]

I'd like to hear from martial artists who have rheumatoid arthritis, and how the disease has affected their training. Also, if there is any remedy to be found through TCM.

[GLW]

RA can be in some ways much more problematic than OA (osteo) - and part of this is in no small fact that RA can eventually lead to OA as well.

The weakening of the joints and bone loss are only some of the issues with RA. There is still the inflammation that can be caused by any number of things. There are also the side effects that many of the RA drugs bring about. Then, if you don't do the drugs, the RA progression can be much worse.

TCM can help as well as Qi Gong and Taijiquan. In the early stages, pretty much all training, if done correctly with an eye to injury avoidance can help slow the RA progression and lessen the need for drugs.

Personally, I do not have RA but do have a student who is in the middle stages. Over the last 2 years, the focus on their training has been preservation of mobility, strength, balance, and such. Their RA progression has slowed considerably but there are still flareups. However, without practice, the flareups are worse and last longer.

Practice and such cannot restore what has been irreparably lost -- such as it can't restore a joint that has been fused or bones that have been messed up due to RA progression. If the organ damage is done in certain areas, things lost stay lost.

So, the main thing to do is start early. Train regularly. Avoid injury. Then, modify the diet and other more natural approaches. It may not allow you to completely avoid the various drugs for RA but it should lessen the need for them to the minimum.

[Lee Chiang Po]

I'd like to hear from martial artists who have rheumatoid arthritis, and how the disease has affected their training. Also, if there is any remedy to be found through TCM.

I have rheumatoid arthritis. I do not suffer from it today, but for the earliest part of my life I suffered greatly from it. Locked up elbows, shoulders, knees, and especially my hands. I was told it would progress until I was fairly crippled from it. Then I spoke with a man that told me some things. He told me, and I have done research and found out that it is accurate, that arthritis is an auto immune system problem. It is not exactly a disease, but a condition brought on by our diet. Foreign proteins. Our diet is not as it was when we were evolving, and since we entered the aggricultural age, we have started substituting vegetable proteins for animal proteins. When we use these foreign proteins to rebuild the body, our auto immune system sees them and attack them. Arthritis is the result. Type 2 diabetes and a few other problems are also auto immune system attacks. You can illiminate them all together simply be changing your diet to a more natural diet.
Man has only been socialized, communized, and aggriculturized for the past 10 or 12 thousand years. That is not long when we consider that only in the past hundred or so years we have been able to really stockpile aggricultural products. For hundreds of thousands of years, maybe more likely millions of years man was a hunter/gatherer. Imagine what you would be able to eat if you were a hunter/gatherer today. You would do most of your hunting and gathering at the local grocery, but you could still find stuff that is quite similar to what you would eat in the wild. Then just think of the things that would never be available to you as a hunter/gatherer and never eat them.
Corn, peas, most beans, grains and grain products, processed sugars, and anything that would require technology to produce in the amounts that you could live on. There would still be a store full of foods that you could eat and enjoy. That is what I do, and I can't remember the last time I felt pain from arthritis.
Also, since fish it most likely the most abundant source of animal protein besides small rodents and the occasional large herbavore. and the fact that most people do not like fish more often than once a week, you can take fish oil in large amounts for a time and it speeds up the recovery from arthritis. You have to be careful if you are elergic to sea food or iodine. Of course the oil pills would not be available to a cave man, but he could eat lots of fish and get the same thing, so it is a natural thing. It also makes the body shed excess fat.

[David Jamieson]

ibuprofen and get yourself a medical cannabis prescription.

[hungheikwan]

Thanks for the input. I've had RA since I was a kid. One aspect of the affliction is that it periodically goes away; I had no flare-ups for fifteen years, then - BANG - I went from doing an easy 30 finger-tip pushups to being unable to flex my wrists in order to achieve a single standard pushup. The last few years have been educational, to say the least. Thanks goodness for CMA. Although I've had to adapt my studies, my martial attitude won't let me quit - I'm not ready to be one of those folks who say "I used to practice martial arts". And my kungfu/taiji regimen keeps me active enough ("standing post" has helped with swelling in my ankles and knees). I'll have to take a long, hard look at my diet, though, since many sources indicate that diet has a profound effect.

My health-care plan allows for regular visits to the rheumatologist. But I've got so many meds in me now, I feel like a walking pharmacy. And I don't wish to spend my next half-century taking a multitude of pills. I'm hoping TCM has some options.

[David Jamieson]

I know my answer was short and sweet, but seriously, look into it. There is a lot of study around it and you do not have to smoke it if that makes you uptight.

You can drink it in tea, eat it in cookies, bread, cakes etc.

Not eaten raw though because heat is required to activate the efficacy of it.

just sayin... :)

Ibuprofen is long known to ease inflammation and associated neuralgia.

[Lee Chiang Po]

I have baked it in an oven for a few minutes to make it dry, then tossed it into a coffee bean grinder and turned it into a fine powder. Be careful not to take a sniff of it immediately after reducing it into powder or you might not complete the task ahead. I have then filled the large gel capsules and bottled them up. This was used in place of opiate drugs to releave pain and it worked. However, it will make you sleep for a few days, depending on the amount you take up front. If it is good bud it can be really effective. I don't think we can get a script down here though.

[Featherstone]

This has been a much discussed subject in my house. My daughter has been living with auto-immune jra, mctd, raynauds, lupus and JDM since she was born. It's hard to say which hit first, and even harder to say when it will stop as it is an auto-immune issue that presents itself as one thing and then materializes as another. With her particular case she is an anomaly that the Doctors are not sure how to treat. We have many medicines that we give her on a daily, weekly and monthly basis that help keep things in check but she still flares.

She is afraid to try any form of the martial arts, likes to watch me, but wont do any of it. She wants to get into dance, however with the JDM attacking her core trunk muscles and the RA on her joints, it is going to be a struggle for her. Finding a school that is willing to be patient with a student with her abilities is going to be hard to find, most want to turn a quick dollar now a days and side line the "student" with nothing challenging. Good luck with RA, please keep me posted as to your success and failures, maybe we can compare notes?

[shaolin_allan]

I dont have rheumatoid arthritis but I do have severe fibromyalgia. Ive been battling sickness and body pain for years and had to quit my job as a graphic designer. It is a struggle to do kung fu but I use it as a inspirational goal to keep continuing my exercise even though quite often I feel like giving up.

[hskwarrior]

Ibuprofen is long known to ease inflammation and associated neuralgia.

OMG...Ibuprofen is my best friend. On the bad side it can eat away at your stomach. but, when i have major pain it does the trick in a beautiful way. when i had Kidney Stones, oh man it worked better than vicodin and other pain killers.

Inflammation is also caused by alot of surgars as well....

[hungheikwan]

I have heard of the diet espoused by Li Chiang Po, referred to as the "Caveman Diet", i.e. eat only what a caveman would eat. There's a lot of credibility to it; certainly processed sugar is bad. I've switched to stevia root for sweetening (I've also dropped 15 lbs. since switching), although I still have a craving for Little Debbie swiss cakes (yum!). And while careful about eating too much white rice, I love potatoes, and they are on the "bad" list. No fast food for me, but red meat for sure, maybe three times a week. And only lean meat or sirloin in those cases. Lately I've been taking a LOT of fish oil - 2400 mg per day, for the last month. Can't say for sure, because the symptoms are less pronounced in warm weather, but there seems to be some progress: fewer flare-ups and only mild inflammation.

My rheumatologist is recommending the new breed of "biologics" (the once-a-month synthetic injectables), but I hate needles. Currently I am taking methotrexate in large quantities to alter the genetic trigger that causes the inflammation, augmented by plaquinal. Folic acid helps to alleviate the side effects. Then there's Celebrex once-a-day, and prednisone (a corto-steroid that drains muscle tissue, so that I'm working out just to KEEP muscle mass). Thank goodness for omeprozol, or else my stomach lining would have dissolved by now.

Regarding Mr. Jamieson's suggestion: Florida doesn't recognize the medicinal effects of cannabis. I've heard it rumored that some doctors here will prescribe marinol (pot in pill form), so maybe I can discuss that with my rheumatologist. (On a side note, I'm sure that the liquor industry is the reason that pot hasn't yet been legalized - they don't want the competition!)

[hungheikwan]

Much of the pain is centered in my wrists, so I've fashioned a windlass, and do three sets of ten roll-up/roll-downs. Currently at ten pounds of weight on the end of the rope - should be at fifteen by month's end. This is necessary as I am working on a double-saber form and a spear form, and wrist strength/flexibility is a must. And, believe it or not, gloving up and hitting the mitts makes my hands feel great.

[Featherstone]

Awesome Hung, keep up the good work.

My daughter is on some of the same meds as you. I tell ya, when we first used Enbrel my daughter did an almost complete 180 in all of her issues. Sadly it only lasted a little over a year and a half before Dermatomyositis came into play. Her Rheumi at All Childrens in St. Pete decided on taking the slow and go approach so my daughter became bed ridden and very sullen. We ended up changing Doctors and now go to Shands in Gainesville. Took her about four months to recover and a dozen new meds but she is back on her feet.

[curenado]

I'm rheumy and it is a sufference. I keep mine under control with foods and cannabis. I even melt off my spurs, so whoever said the damage is done isn't rheumy or a doctor (or a very good doctor ar least)

I take NO pills beyond a loraab when I'm stiffened up. You couldn't get me to eat that rotten ****e, esspecially the immune suppressors. If I could work from a nice hot bath I wouldn't even take the loratab.

I have to say that after years of it, flare ups, deformities and then getting rid of them that the heavy antioxidants and the marijuana have been my best friends. I don't even think you can have a flare up on cannabis? My flare ups make me bad sick for 3 days usually. They hit hard and fast, making getting all that extra chemistry back out take longer.

My goal is to reach the age where my immune system backs off without having deformities. So far, so good.

Some chinese mushrooms, Indian tea and blessed American marijuana saved me from the stupid, worthless bologna of a lot of my colleagues who would have me miserable, sicker and in the grave, even if it just because they are ignorant and American made.

Good luck! I hope you find the foods for you! I did not give up anything, I just added more right things.

[teetsao]

my mother suffers from r.a.,swollen joints with heat and pain.
my herbalist gave me this prescritption for external jow. it really helps her.she does not use any arthritis meds. no claims,but don't knock it til you try it. i believe it will help you.

18g ea.

ji xue teng
hai feng ting
sang zi
qin jiu
gui zhi
gan cao
dang gui
dang shen
sang ji sheng
nui qi
rou cong rong
hong zao
tao ren
ba ji
fu ling
yan hu
fang feng
qiang huo

grind herbs and add to 1gal. hot vodka.shake 5min.daily and let sit for at least 100 days b4 use. i hope it helps you as much as it did my mother.

[shaolin_allan]

currently im struggling just to continue kung fu at this point. i am taking naproxen, cymbalta, lyrica, and muscle relaxers for pain and inflammation as well as receiving injections of both epidurals as well as weekly trigger point shots which include lidocaine, b-12, and sometimes cortizone mixed in. the shots no longer bother me but having to take it easy for days in a row and not being able to attend kung fu class really affects my training and makes it near impossible to train regularly. I could do tai chi im sure but there is almost no tai chi out near me and the classes that there are seem to be only once a week. i know that is better than nothing but any style i do i would like the option of going 2-3 times a week in case i miss a class or two.

[hungheikwan]

Thank you all for your responses.

to Curenado: What kind of foods do you find help your condition? Have you had any luck with pineapple? (It's been mentioned to me several times)

to Teetsao: many thanks for the formula. I will investigate and seek out a local herbalist or apothecary.

to Shaolin Allan: Hang in there, brother. Keep those joints moving - "coiling" (circling) from the wrist, elbow and shoulders, at least ten rotations in both directions, every day. The legs are tricky, 'cause you stand on them, but you can either hold on to the back of a chair & stand on one foot, or lie on the floor and slowly circle first at the ankles, then gently coil from the knees and finally the hips.

to Featherstone: I am also a father, and I feel especially sympathetic towards your situation. Shands has an excellent reputation, and I hope that your daughter is on the way to recovery. There is a theory that arthritis is hereditary, and I fear that my children may inherit this affliction. So I am motivated to learn as much as I can about the condition not only for my sake, but for theirs. I also exhibit dermamytosis (on my thumbs); I rub in some some beeswax at bedtime to soften the skin.

Again, my sincere thanks to all.