There is a published study comparing began with high dose prednisone therapy. Showed a strong connection between diet and symptoms. High percentage of subjects experienced significant reduction in pain and swelling.

But as I've learned the hard way - it's very individual when it comes to flare foods. Many of my flare foods are different fruits & veggies. Yours might be meats or grains.

First try an elimination diet for a few weeks. See if your symptoms lessen. Then add foods one by one. Keep a diary. See which foods seem to be associated with increase in symptoms. Then avoid them.

Or go get food allergy tested. My trigger foods showed up as positives. It's a faster way of identifying if diet therapy might work for you - as it does for me.

Good luck!

That's vegan not began......:)

hi Jordan

i'm in my 4th year I think of veganism.

no meat, no fish, no dairy. a plant based diet. so if it is NOT in a package and it is NOT from an animal, I eat it.

I do not have gluten intolerance or celiac so I eat grains. In my opinion if you have that also AND go vegan you are going to be so super restricted....

you have to LOVE (not like) beans

I do not have a nighshades allergy so I can eat them all if i feel like it but I eat across every color constantly

i must truck 10 pounds of vegetables in here a week. it's a LOT of work. it would work better if I had a juicer (I do not) and good wrists (I do not) and working hands (nope those don't work either)

get volunteers to chop if you can find them :). Join a local Community Supported Agricultural group. have that gorgeous guy in the picture buy you a juicer.

difference in my RA? I give it about 10-15 percent increase in the quality of my life and decrease in swelling. on a bad day. when I am in a good mood 20-25 percent.

I don't believe in magical food elixirs for commonalities. If it works great for one person great. that does not extrapolate to the holy grail.. I have no food allergies except to dairy and I have been tested. I eat NO cheese, and cows milk is for calves. that means no ice cream as the almond ice cream has too many chemicals in it and comes in a package. i usually freeze bananas if I want the idea of ice cream and then blend them.

but you get all these other side benefits, uh, colon wise, cholesterol wise, skin wise and I think it helps with the toxins from the drugs. i don't know why. I just made that up.

as far as the McDougall and Barnard and all the other screaming doctors about veganism:

in my humble opinion only

1. their claims are fanaticism
2. they are selling their books, their dvd's, their websites, their lectures, their seminars, their weekend retreats

I feel the same way about the fanaticism and marketing by weight watchers, paleo, atkins, the cabbage diet and anything that sells anything including psuedo diet counselors who will help you find their way their truth their light. it's just entertainment and marketing. their is no universal truth about food.

this does not mean I am not a vegan, it means I wish folks would calm down and let everybody eat whatever plan they want that does these three things:

1. keeps you at a good BMI
2. keeps your blood cholesterol excellent
3. keeps you healthy
4. works for you

because I don't care what it is called, if aint working for you, you will not love it and embrace the joy of it.

I love the colors in my fridge
I love my grocery bills
I love scratch cooking (pretty much 24/7)

here's a couple of questions:

1. do you LOVE meat? then this will just not naturally work, don't even bother trying (really) :)
2. do you LOVE to cook, because unless I am eating raw that's all I do or I don't eat, because I don't eat out, I don't eat processed foods, I don't eat foods to go, and I dont' eat food in packaging
3. do you crave vegetables?
4. do you love grains and beans?
5. are you bored to death with this post?

yours, in vegetables
Ros

veganism is way too extreme for me. i eat about 85% vegetarian (closer to 90% recently) because i love love love cheese and i enjoy a steak now and then. aside from traditional family christmas morning bacon, i haven't purchased raw meat and brought it in the house in over 13 months. i developed RA and became highly symptomatic after making drastic diet changes - severely limiting meat intake, cutting cow's milk dairy intake by half, reading so many labels and being so aware of what i'm putting in my body.

i do believe that some people have trigger foods, but agree with others - you have to find what works for you. the only potential trigger i've come up with so far is aspartame - i think. as far as going vegan, if you really really like meat, cheese, eggs, honey, and most granulated sugar, you may want to reconsider. even going vegetarian, you have to be aware of where you're getting which vitamins and minerals. american/western diets are meat heavy and we rely on meats to get most of our protein and iron. it's important to figure out what you need to eat to ensure you get enough protein and other necessary nutrients.

Stephgas- want to be sure I understand-you became highly symptomatic after adopting a mainly vegetarian diet? or became vegetarian after becoming symptomatic?

My symptoms got bad after staying on a restrictive diet, higher in protein but real food and low calorie (less than 1000 calories a day).
I also had spine surgery and lots of stress so I'm not sure what if any of it exacerbated the situation.

so many scenarios for each person...

i get my iron from dark green vegetables and beans. my iron is at the high end of normal as tested.

i have the doc test all my iron, minerals and b 12 more than once a year. it's amazing to me. I don't even have to take a sub b12 but I do anyway.

there is protein in plants. I forget to say I don't eat tofu nor any meat substitutes as they are all chemicals. but I agree with mouth feel for meat eaters, you know the "bite" and how americans feel. i never argue with a meat eater in my family ) never :) I can not convince one person in my family that my doctor has tested me and I am getting enough protein from a plant based diet. so I don't try. they just know how "they" feel and so they extrapolate it to me. It is trying :)

it's like religion, sex, and money, food is. best not discussed at the family table

Ros

beech, i became very symptomatic within three months of drastically changing my diet for the better. it was also five months after having my gallbladder removed and about two months after having another outpatient surgery. i've had trouble with a DIP joint (which i am repeatedly told by my rheumy is not related to RA because it never affects DIP joints) for years, but after having the surgeries and changing my diet i became symptomatic. within nine months i was exhibiting many symptoms of RA. i also have a strong family history.

ros, i too am tested by my doctor, but only once a year. i take a multivitamin and get lots of protein from veggies. i do use protein shakes as supplements once in a while, maybe once a week, just to supplement. i used to use them daily. it's all about moderation for me - yes, i eat some processed foods, but WAY less than i used to.

figures, i work so hard to eat healthy and make all these positive dietary changes, then BOOM i get ra.

watch those shakes they are chock full of long words that aint too good. you could probably make whatever you want yourself with that almond milk you love :) - want to share home made recipes for the blender?

I started a year after my diagnosis and it empowered me to do something fun and healthy that wasn't being done to me. :). i'm such a control freak :)

who knows Steph maybe it would have been worse if you were on the Standard American Diet when the **it the fan, right? think of it that way!

hugs
Ros

I am so encouraged by this tread. I love vegan food, nut not everyday. I had allergy tests done, and I am not allergic to hardly anything. I have no severe allergies, and one moderate allergy, yeast. I should not eat any bread, or anything fermented. This explains my days a a cheap drunk. Really, one glass of wine and I am quiet impaired.
Thank you for sharing these stories, I will re-commit to avoiding all things yeast.
Thanks again,
Lynne

I love.Love.LOVE this thread! As a health coach, one of the first things I tell clients is that no one diet fits all! Many of them want to go on the program I went on to lose weight some years before health coach training. I changed my diet moderately after becoming a health coach... after all, we had to watch quite a few movie trailers about how livestock are raised in this country and about meat production. I think it would change a LOT of peoples' minds to watch them! :)

Ros is right on about embracing whatever eating plan you're on.

I did just recently learn that nightshades and dairy are a no-no for me (through elimination and challenge). But I don't feel in the least deprived. As much as I used to love cheese, I love a lower pain score more.

There is a health coach who cured herself of a rare and incurable cancer going vegan. She has a huge following. Does that mean veganism would work for everyone one that way? I don't think so, but her followers swear by it. Check out www.KrisCarr.com if you want. She's known for her Crazy Sexy Cancer book, DVD, etc., etc. She has since changed her brand to Crazy Sexy Wellness.

While it's true that meat, dairy and nightshades produce inflammation in our bodies, it might NOT affect your RA pain.

So, I'm all about experimenting. I'd rather control (there's that word!) my pain and disease as much as possible with food rather than big pharma medications any day of the week. Then again, I'm a health coach. :) And I may need big pharma one of these days. I just hope not...

Ok buddhacat

you can have the mic after Alto at the comedy club

Ros

hey, i love my long unpronounceable words once in a while. i even make *gasp* morningstar farms veggie burgers for dinner once in a while! for us, it's been about limiting what we eat. i used to eat lean cuisines or processed lunch meat sandwiches EVERY DAY.

something that's a staple in my life is pretzels. i effing love pretzels. i choose snyder's of hanover because of the ingredients: enriched flour (it's not bleached but has added vitamins), water, salt, malt dextrose (a simple sugar that can occur naturally but is often derived from cornstarch), canola oil, yeast, soda. for me, the worst thing on this list is the enriched flour because it is the first ingredient (the most volume) and is somewhat processed.

when we go out to eat, i might eat a white bread roll. bleached and enriched and wholly unnatural. but yummy ;) i mean, almond milk is processed too, but if i were to cut out all processed foods, i'd be following a paleo diet. and i'd lose my mind. because it's not for me. no matter how many people say 'it's so easy' or whatever, it's not for me. cooking vegetables is 'processing' them. to me, anything that changes or alters the structure of the food is processing. it's about limiting that processing.

we've been cooking and baking and roasting food for centuries, maybe longer but i'm not a history major. for me, if i think about when obesity and other diseases became so widespread, it coincides with the advent of easy to prepare processed food and 'fast' foods. were people fat and unhealthy before then? sure. but obesity wasn't an epidemic in 1940, before tv dinners and mcdonald's was everywhere.

hey Steph I hear you, be where you have to be or want to be. so be it :)

but as to Jordan, if you want to give the veganism a try for grins write me off list. The Physicians Commitee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM) have a free 21 day vegan jump start that is pretty easy to follow. just ignore all the screams to buy stuff and sign up for the free jumpstart and it returns menus daily. For reading have fun with the china study and other tomes from kindle or the library.

Ros

I agree also that this a fabulous thread .ros13 your original post "nailed it" in so many ways...This paleo diet is just everywhere .it's the flavor of the month.I've had a lot of people say to me"oh ,you should be on this".It's such a simplistic view.hey,it's great for those that it really works for but there are a lot of variables and they can affect people from one end of the spectrum to the other end...At this point I think I'd drink snake oil if I really thought it would work to at least lessen my pain and fatigue.It's hard ...but again thx for all this input.

My daughter an I both find that wheat is a trigger. So we really work to avoid it. I am trying to a more plant-based diet, but I don't think I could completely give up all meat. I think I could get down to seafood only.

I come from ranch people so even just saying that seems partly sacreligious.