Hi everyone,

Before anything, I’d like to thank Barbara for sharing her experience, and her meticulous research in so many avenues that led eventually to her recovery from reactive arthritis.  What a long painstaking personal road to the vary valuable knowledge she generously continues to share. 

I was diagnosed with RA 3 years ago after a number of years of intensely stressful situations.  The RA progressed quite rapidly over a few months from one finger on one hand to both hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles, making walking several paces,  lifting a tea cup, for example, very painful.  My range of motion in my arms was soon very limited - I couldn’t lift my arms out to the side, front or back more than a foot.  I  began research almost immediately.    I chose to pursue diet and exercise as methods of healing and continue to.  I chose not to take medication.    I am well aware that that is simply a choice for myself - each person has to find the mix of healing strategies, often changing strategies, that works for them as we are all unique.   At the start of the RA I took Naproxen to relieve the pain and inflammation and very quickly was at the maximum dose.   It helped for the first 2 weeks but then had little effect on relieving the pain or inflammation.    However, it did have a scary effect on my weight - I started losing weight steadily, as well as having an increasing acidic feeling in my stomach.    I began acupuncture (Traditional Chinese Medicine) with a practitioner who has extensive experience with treating  RA with acupuncture.  Within a  week I  was sleeping most of the night again, the pain was significantly decreasing and I regained my range of motion.   Over several months I was able to wean myself off the naproxen.   At the acupuncturist encouragement I began  a careful regime of swimming/aquafit the following month as well as simple meditation practices.  All continue to support my health and well-being and lower pain levels.     

 I  slowly improved until last winter when the pain in my knees and ankles began increasing and the acidic feeling in my stomach started anew.   I began again  to research dietary help as it felt as though my body was reacting to food but I couldn’t figure out to which foods.   I discovered the book Diet and Arthritis, by Gail Darlington a rheumatologist in the UK who had done studies/trials with diet and RA with very positive results using an elimination diet and a re-introduction of foods phase.  It is the same source that mentioned Barbara’s book Conquering Arthritis.  I opted for the UK book because I was concerned about more weight loss with the fasting that was encouraged in Barbara’s method.   I began the elimination diet  in June 2011.   After initially experiencing very strong withdrawal symptoms ( much like initial RA symptoms of pain, fatigue) I gradually improved each day - much less stiffness and pain.  As I began to re-introduce foods, however, I started to decline with  increased pain and inflammation.   It was also recommended that 3 foods be tested a day with 5 hours between the foods to give time for a reaction if there was going to be one.  I found  3 foods per day was too much - the reactions were getting mingled with each other as I suspected that I often took longer to react to some foods.  I stopped re-introducing foods and stayed on the elimination diet yet found I couldn’t seem to regain the level of health I had achieved on that diet a few weeks before.  In fact I felt I was  getting worse.   I turned to Barbara’s site.   I did the Alcat test and received my results 6 weeks ago.    As it turned out, I had a sensitivity to half of the foods on the initial elimination diet I had been on.    After 6 weeks on the Alcat diet I no longer have the roller coaster ride up and down of pain and inflammation from worse to slightly better to worse again, from one day to the next.  Just very slow, steady improvement.   Where I had pain in both feet and knees I now only have pain  in my right knee and ankle.    The inflammation in both ankles and right knee has not gone down much.   After noticing that I seemed to have gas after eating grains I decided 3 days ago to cut them out completely for 7 days to see if there was any improvement.  Almost immediately the gas stopped.  The pain in my ankle continues to very very slowly subside.    I have  checked into  this forum off and on for a few weeks and have already been helped and encouraged by some of the experiences described and the proactive tone and action of posters.  I hope I can do the same for others.  take care of yourselves...