RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS
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Raw milk is definitely better than pasteurized milk, but as @Fructose said, you should focus on the gut as that's where most problems start.
If you have RA, you definitely have leaky gut and dysbiosis. You should take a multiple angle approach, paying special attention to eliminating anything from your diet that may irritate your gut and cause inflammation, in your case you should eliminate all dairy.
The most important thing after eliminating foods that trigger inflammation is focusing on eliminating bacteria in the intestines and repairing the intestinal wall using activated charcoal, bone broth, and coconut oil.
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@STH I was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis in 2014. I lost the use of both thumbs and was pretty much incapacitated (thumbs come in handy!).
I found Ray Peat's website and read up. I started eating dairy and orange juice and carrot salad (shred/soak/rinse/squeeze out the carotene before consuming). I banned PUFA from my life. I also found a good endocrinologist to help me optimize my prescription desiccated thyroid. The endo changed my decades long term prescription for Armour thyroid and put me on NP Thyroid by Acella. Then we spent the next 9 months optimizing the dose amount. The pain/inflammation of the RA went away the first week of taking the NP Thyroid. My thumbs healed over several months. I put the thumb braces away after about 5-6 months.
It's been 9 years, I'm still taking the NP Thyroid and I have not had any RA flare ups during this time.
I also take progesterone to deal with inflammatory estrogen dominance; I also take pregnenolone and magnesium (among several other supplements); these seem to be the most important for the rheumatoid arthritis.
links:
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/tissue-destruction.shtml
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/progesterone-summaries.shtml
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fats-degeneration3.shtml -
@STH Here's an additional link for magnesium information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7761127/
I got into a lot of trouble with my digestive tract in 2020 after taking Bactrim antibiotic; Ray Peat advised me to take thiamine and magnesium to heal my gut. It works!
Here's a link (or 2) to articles about thiamine and intestinal health:
https://www.hormonesmatter.com/sibo-ibs-constipation-thiamine-deficiency/
https://www.hormonesmatter.com/severe-gut-dysmotility-dysautonomia-malnutrition/ -
@STH some stuff here may help! https://constantinek.substack.com/p/autoimmunity
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I'm not sure if you're aware but Ray Peat actually had a patent for an arthritis salve. I review it and explain how you can make your own pretty easily here:
https://bradcohn.substack.com/p/ray-peats-miracle-arthritis-salve
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Does anyone know if using topical protest-e for arthritis could alter a woman's cycle?
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@notmcas Topical application is about 20% as effective as rubbing it into your gums.
suggested listening:
Politics & Science: Progesterone Part 1
Politics & Science: Progesterone Part 2
Politics & Science: Progesterone Part 3 -
Have you tried progest
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@dt I have used progest-e.
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Start by introducing 1-2L of goat milk into your diet, it's much easier for the gut to process, then after that you can slowly reintroduce normal dairy. I had symptoms of early arthritis in my shoulder joint following an injury, a combination of things solved it but I'd say this had the most impact.
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Guys, I have horrible RA. It's literally taken over my entire body. I've been "peating" for some time now. I'm just not seeing benefits. Here's the scoop:
I do have high prolactin so obviously need more calcium.
High CRP
My TSH is always floating between 2.5-3 because when ever I take more than 12.5 mcg of cynomel I get excitation in the gut and it takes a while to calm down. When I did do higher doses before I noticed this gut issue, I was feeling better as were my joints. Rheumatologist thinks I'm insane for taking t3.
I've done the carrot salads, charcoal, gelatin, collagen, progesterone, pregnenolone, high dose K2, even lots of salt.
I had SIBO and by using bitters, salt and taurine regularly it seems to have calmed down.
There was a point when I was taking Minocycline (check the RoadBack website) and it was working better than conventional drugs but good luck getting a Dr. to prescribe that long term ( I'm not in the US, sadly).
Currently trying to do high dose Niacinamide. See if that does anything.
I guess I'm just bummed out because I know of a few people who have been able to get rid of this by following Peats recommendations.
Any words of wisdom? Am I just doing it all wrong? -
@Zofia said in RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS:
I have horrible RA. It's literally taken over my entire body. I've been "peating" for some time now. I'm just not seeing benefits. Here's the scoop:
I do have high prolactin so obviously need more calcium.
High CRP
My TSH is always floating between 2.5-3 because when ever I take more than 12.5 mcg of cynomel I get excitation in the gut and it takes a while to calm down. When I did do higher doses before I noticed this gut issue, I was feeling better as were my joints. Rheumatologist thinks I'm insane for taking t3.
I've done the carrot salads, charcoal, gelatin, collagen, progesterone, pregnenolone, high dose K2, even lots of salt.
I had SIBO and by using bitters, salt and taurine regularly it seems to have calmed down.
There was a point when I was taking Minocycline (check the RoadBack website) and it was working better than conventional drugs but good luck getting a Dr. to prescribe that long term ( I'm not in the US, sadly).
Currently trying to do high dose Niacinamide. See if that does anything.
I guess I'm just bummed out because I know of a few people who have been able to get rid of this by following Peats recommendations.
Any words of wisdom? Am I just doing it all wrong?High prolactin points to high estrogen and high inflammation. What is your situation with ingesting pufa (polyunsaturated fats) which are highly inflammatory and last something like 4+ years in your body? Niacinamide would help keep your free fatty acids parked inside your fat cells so they would not exacerbate your inflammation. I found that taking a lower dose of niacinamide more frequently worked better for me than taking a higher dose less frequently. I take 100mg niacinamide, 4Xday. Niacinamide is water soluble so you wind up peeing it out pdq (2 hours max).
CRP = c-reactive protein
"CRP has both proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory properties. It plays a role in the recognition and clearance of foreign pathogens and damaged cells by binding to phosphocholine, phospholipids, histone, chromatin, and fibronectin. It can activate the classic complement pathway and also activate phagocytic cells via Fc receptors to expedite the removal of cellular debris and damaged or apoptotic cells and foreign pathogens. This can become pathologic, however, when it is activated by autoantibodies displaying the phosphocholine arm in auto-immune processes, such as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). It can also worsen tissue damage in certain cases by activation of the complement system and thus inflammatory cytokines. "I think it is more helpful to interpret elevated CRP as a marker of inflammation run amok.
"My TSH is always floating between 2.5-3" TSH itself is inflammatory. I think it would be more helpful if you could get an endocrinologist to help you address your hypothyroid symptoms using a reliable prescription desiccated thyroid medication that is tested and proven for content and includes both T4 and T3. Getting your prescription amount calibrated to your body's needs will take months with blood testing every 6-8 weeks. When the body is hypothyroid, it compensates by pumping out more adrenaline so you can function. When you consistently provide some desiccated thyroid that has the ratio of T3 to T4 similar to what a healthy thyroid would put out, after a few weeks, the body will realize it can rely on these thyroid hormones and will lower the amount of adrenaline it puts out. When this happens, usually within 6-8 weeks of starting the thyroid med, you'll feel symptomatic again. The doctor will retest you (full thyroid panel, blood testing), and will increase your dose of thyroid med. This process gets repeated multiple times until you finally reach your "optimum" dose of desiccated thyroid. When I went through this process in 2015, it took 9 months to get the dose "optimized".
Please note that when I started with my new endocrinologist I had recently been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, had lost the use of my thumbs, was scheduled for stem cell treatment for the right thumb, and was sporting a custom molded forearm spica splint on each arm. I was in a lot of pain and had been told by the occupational therapist that I wasn't going to get better; I was going to get worse and worse until I wouldn't be able to do anything. Losing the use of my thumbs had already pretty much incapacitated me and I realized that I would have to go into assisted living (at age 65) very soon.
The new endocrinologist changed the brand of my desiccated thyroid med from Armour to NP Thyroid by Acella and started with the dose amount (90mg) that I had been taking for the previous 10 years. Within the first week, all the inflammation resolved. It took maybe a month to get out of those spica splints and into small velco thumb supports. It took maybe 9 months to no longer need any thumb supports at all. I never did get the stem cell treatment. I'm fine now; it's been 9 years. My optimized dose amount turned out to be 180 mg of NP Thyroid.
"Rheumatologist thinks I'm insane for taking t3." I think you need to find a really good endocrinologist who already uses prescription desiccated thyroid medication to treat their patients. They're out there, you just have to shop for one. Here's why I think it is dangerous to "do it yourself": If you take too much t3, you can make yourself "hyperthyroid". Hyperthyroidism causes thiamine deficiency; it just burns through the thiamine via high oxidative metabolism. Thiamine deficiency results in blocked oxidative metabolism (just like hypothyroidism does) and results in INFLAMMATION.
"I've done the carrot salads, charcoal, gelatin, collagen, progesterone, pregnenolone, high dose K2, even lots of salt."
Gelatin is great stuff! It is a major source of protein for me. I also take progesterone and pregnenolone and K2. I love salt! But I think that a major key in my own recovery has been high dose thiamine along with magnesium, niacinamide, and riboflavin."I had SIBO": I had lots of digestive tract issues for many years; I recovered via high dose thiamine + magnesium, niacinamide, riboflavin. Suggested reading.
I believe that I've had a problem with thiamine deficiency for at least 50 years. I believe that it was the result of heavy metal poisoning (including mercury) which caused me to have high oxidative stress and high reactive oxygen species. My high oxidative stress burned through my thiamine stores and made me deficient. The thyroid needs thiamine to function. Thiamine is a tremendous anti-inflammatory, so is magnesium.
suggested reading:
How Can Something As Simple as Thiamine Cause So Many Problems?Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis: An Unusual Treatment
The impact of oxidative stress in thiamine deficiency: A multifactorial targeting issue
Interactions of oxidative stress with thiamine homeostasis promote neurodegeneration
Magnesium Status and Stress: The Vicious Circle Concept Revisited
Please note that several "Peaty" things made me worse:
1: too much sugar/carbs: In order to burn sugar (glucose) for fuel, thiamine is needed; too much sugar, in relation to the supply of thiamine available results in blocked oxidative metabolism which has lactic acid as the end product instead of carbon dioxide. Thiamine supplementation resolves inflammation caused by lactic acid.
2: Coffee (and black tea) block thiamine function. I stopped drinking it.
3: I cannot tolerate carotene. I always shred, then soak, then rinse, then squeeze out the water from my carrots before eating as salad. Ray Peat has said that hypothyroid people cannot convert carotene into vitamin A.
I hope you find this helpful.
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@mostlylurking
Wow, thank you so much for this insightful post! I forgot to mention I am currently taking Vitex and it's helped my PMS significantly. I was doing progesterone for a while but it became too tedious with RA hands.
Honestly, I keep my PUFA very low, I have also been told it can take up to 4+ years to get rid of in the tissues. I eat all home-cooked meals, even if I have some PUFA it's less than 3-4g. How do you know what does of Niacinamide works for you? Currently, I'm at 500mg and feel good, mostly getting sugar from fruit or honey.
I really like that explanation of CRP, makes complete sense.
Yes, I've been thinking of seeing one but it's a hit or miss of course. So with the appropriate amount of thyroid, you were able to put the disease into remission?
Thank you for all the reading! I'll be reading it all. I've also come across SIBO being treated with high-dose thiamene, up to 600mg.
I found this extreamly helpful! Thank you for responding
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@Zofia said in RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS:
I forgot to mention I am currently taking Vitex and it's helped my PMS significantly. I was doing progesterone for a while but it became too tedious with RA hands.
Honestly, I keep my PUFA very low, I have also been told it can take up to 4+ years to get rid of in the tissues. I eat all home-cooked meals, even if I have some PUFA it's less than 3-4g. How do you know what does of Niacinamide works for you? Currently, I'm at 500mg and feel good, mostly getting sugar from fruit or honey.
I really like that explanation of CRP, makes complete sense.
Yes, I've been thinking of seeing one but it's a hit or miss of course. So with the appropriate amount of thyroid, you were able to put the disease into remission?
Thank you for all the reading! I'll be reading it all. I've also come across SIBO being treated with high-dose thiamene, up to 600mg.
I've never taken Vitex myself so I have no personal experience with it. Some say it can be estrogenic. I do use a couple of blats of progesterone every night; one blat rubbed into my gums, the other blat mixed with equal parts coconut oil and done vaginally. The total of 2 blats equals about 40mg of progesterone (in vitamin E).
I've been a lunatic avoiding pufa for 9 years. I don't eat out. My husband thinks I'm nuts. But it's better than being closed up in a facility for the incapacitated.
Regarding the niacinamide: Ray Peat always recommended doses of 90mg for niacinamide. I took two doses of niacinamide each day, each 200mg for 7 years. But then, I decided to switch to 100mg 4Xday. After that one change, I lost about 35 pounds in about 8-10 weeks. I think it's because the more frequent smaller doses made my body work better. I was very surprised when I finally weighed myself because my clothes fit differently.
"I really like that explanation of CRP, makes complete sense."
I think that the whole RA thing is caused by inflammation. Inflammation is caused by poor oxidative metabolism. If you can correct what's interfering with the oxidative metabolism, the inflammation disappears and your body will heal itself. I think that it really is that straight forward."Yes, I've been thinking of seeing one but it's a hit or miss of course. So with the appropriate amount of thyroid, you were able to put the disease into remission?"
I don't know where you are. I'm in the U.S. Pharmacies here receive prescriptions from doctors, fill them, and the patients pick them up. If the situation is similar where you are, the pharmacists know which endos/doctors prescribe desiccated thyroid already. If NP Thyroid by Acella is available in your country, you could ask pharmacists near you which doctors are prescribing it (or Armour brand or other?). This research would shorten your doctor hunt quite a bit.Yes, the right dose of a good desiccated thyroid med (NP Thyroid by Acella) completely resolved my rheumatoid arthritis. Ray Peat wrote that this was common knowledge back in the olden golden days, before the medical industry mucked things up so badly.
ARTHRITIS AND NATURAL HORMONES
A very healthy 71 year-old man was under his house repairing the foundation, when a support slipped and let the house fall far enough to break some facial bones. During his recovery, he developed arthritis in his hands. It is fairly common for arthritis to appear shortly after an accident, a shock, or surgery, and Han Selye's famous work with rats shows that when stress exhausts the adrenal glands (so they are unable to produce normal amounts of cortisone and related steroid hormones), arthritis and other "degenerative" diseases are likely to develop.But when this man went to his doctor to "get something for his arthritis," he was annoyed that the doctor insisted on giving him a complete physical exam, and wouldn't give him a shot of cortisone. The examination showed low thyroid function, and the doctor prescribed a supplement of thyroid extract, explaining that arthritis is one of the many symptoms of hypothyroidism. The patient agreed to take the thyroid, but for several days he grumbled about the doctor 'fixing something that wasn't wrong' with him, and ignoring his arthritis. But in less than two weeks, the arthritis had entirely disappeared. He lived to be 89, without a recurrence of arthritis. (He died iatrogenically, while in good health.)"
