I have a form of RA (Stills Disease) and I am currently taking the following supplements on a daily basis. I'd appreciate any feedback on this, if you think I am taking too much, too less, alternatives etc.
Morning (breakfast)
Folic Acid X 2
Ultra Inflam X 3
Glucosamine Sulphate + Chondroitin + MSM x 2 = Glucosamine (1000mg) + Chond (800mg) + MSM (200mg)
Vitamin C + Bioflanoids + rosehips X 1
Milk Thistle (175mg) x 2
Turmeric (400mg) X 2
Liq Root (420mg) X 1
Ginger Root (550mg) X 2
Vitamin B6 (50mg) X 1
Fish Oil (1000mg) X 2
Vitamin B Complex
Zinc (25mg) X 1
Evening (Tea)
Niacin (100mg) X 1
Premier multi vitamins X 1
Ultra Inflam x 3
Glucosamine + Chond + MSM X 1 = Glucosamine (500mg) + Chond (400mg) + MSM (100mg)
Vitamin C + Bioflanoids + rosehips
Milk Thistle (175mg) x 2
Turmeric (400mg) X 2
Liq Root (420mg) X 1
Ginger Root (550mg) X 1
Vitamin B6 (50mg) X 1
Fish Oil (1000mg) X 2
ABC Plus (multi-vit) X 1
Glucosamine Sulphate (1000mg) X 1
Selenium A C E X 1
Zinc (25mg) X 1
If certain things don't make sense I'll let you know. Thanks.
Thats a lot of supplements!!!! Are they working for you?
Lesle
[QUOTE=Lesle]
Thats a lot of supplements!!!! Are they working for you?
Lesle
[/QUOTE]
Not too sure. I seem to remember getting morning stiffness after stopping to take the Fish Oil. I think the Liqorice Root helps me flare less. Not too sure about the rest really. My left knee has recently started hurting, not sure if it's the illness doing its rounds through the joints or whether its now osteo. I missed taking my supplements for about a week so see if things improve now Im back on them again.
STE
Are you taking meds with these supplements? Such as anti-inflammatories or DMARDS? Also--Are you really certain that the fish oil helps your morning stiffness?[QUOTE=Teech7]Are you taking meds with these supplements? Such as anti-inflammatories or DMARDS? Also--Are you really certain that the fish oil helps your morning stiffness?[/QUOTE]
I'm on chemo every 4 weeks and I take sulphasalazine.
With regards to fish oil. It's one of the first things I started taking, along with Turmieric and Ginger I think. I seem to remember running out of fish oil but keeping on the other 2. After a few days I got stiffness in the mornings - started the fish oil again and the stiffness went.
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hi may i ask how works for u this all therapy do u feel better ? for how long time do u have RA? i have OA do u think it works if i do the same i will appreciate your advice kind regards Veronica |
[QUOTE=Lesle]In an anti inflamatory diet - they say the most important thing is the Omega 3's - the fish oil. If you could take only 1 extra item that's supposed to be the item of choice.Thats a lot of supplements!!!! Are they working for you?
Lesle
[/QUOTE]
I take the following suplements everyday:
multi-vitamin/ extra calcium + magnesium/ extra C/ fish oil/ MSM
and I believe (from experimenting) that what helps me the best is the MSM and fish oil (in winter, specifically, cod liver oil).
I do not take any toxic (regular) RA drugs.
Try these supplements for 2 months and see if you too have pain/stiffness/swelling under control as I do.
I was in excruciatng pain for 8 months and Dx RA; refused the dangerous drugs the doctor prescribed, and began experimenting with diet & supplments. I presently eat anything I want, but stick strictly with these supplements since they appear to keep those horrible symptoms away.
HELP YOURSELF HEAL. Don't let the medical field push you further into poor health.
Vitamins and supplements (apart from Feverfew which I have posted about elsewhere) have had little or no perceptible effect on me (I’ve often had expensive yellow urine though after taking vitamins!) with the exception of fish oil which had a measurable effect on my body but not the one most would expect. I tried taking about 6000 mg of fish oil a day (in two separate doses with food) and my cholesterol soared from 6.2 ( in Australia we use a different system for measuring cholesterol levels from that used in the US but 5.5 is considered the acceptable healthy upper limit) to a dangerously high 7.8.
I of course immediately stopped taking the fish oil and my cholesterol went back down to 6.2 (still too high). What surprised me was that my bad cholesterol rose but not the good when I took fish oil. I figure that people with arthritis often take drugs that tax the liver and since my liver was already struggling to cope with metabolising the arthritis drugs I take it could not regulate my cholesterol properly as well.
I’d like to resume taking fish oil as it seemed to help my brain function. This may sound funny but I had the distinct feeling my brain function improved as a result of taking the fish oil. However it is known that fish oil can help calm people with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and improve their brain function so why shouldn’t it do the same for people that don't have ADD? Despite my belief that my brain function improved after taking fish oil I decided I’d rather drop a few IQ points than suffer a stroke (my father had a stroke and his cholesterol was a whopping 11 one of the highest readings ever seen) because fish oil caused my cholesterol to rise to way too high!
Did fish oil help my arthritis? Not that I could feel, no, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t helping. However I took fish oil for years while I was younger and not riddled with arthritis like I am today and my arthritis steadily got worse. The best that can be said about fish oil is that it may help reduce inflammation. It certainly doesn't lubricate the joints by getting into the blood and reducing friction between joints the way oil reduces friction between moving parts in a car which is the reasoning behind some quacks claiming it helps!
I once read a book by a supposedly renowned doctor who no doubt was growing wealthy from the books he peddled about curing arthritis and advocated making up a mixture of cod liver oil and orange juice (the orange juice was to break up the fish oil molecules so that it could get to the joints)! Fish oil does get into the blood but after the liver has turned it into the same cholesterol we all naturally have in our bodies regardless of what we eat.
Edward
I can't understand how Fish Oil could possibly worsen your arthritis - arthritis gets steadily worse naturally anyway.
One fact is that when I stopped taking my Fish Oil my morning stiffness and pains returned - back on the fish oil and they disappeared again.
Steve
Hi Steve
I never meant to infer that fish oil worsened my arthritis but rather that my arthritis continued to get worse while taking it (I took it regularly for years as my arthritis gradually worsened). You are quite correct in saying that arthritis gets worse naturally anyway. If fish oil helps alleviate your morning stiffness lucky you and by all means go on taking it. Anything that helps is good. Feverfew seems to do for me what fish oil does for you and I thank God something besides powerful pain-killers help. I may resume taking fish oil in smaller amounts if I can get my cholesterol down below the acceptable upper limit.
Dragon
DHA
What you said re: improved brain function relative to the fish oil makes perfect sense. The DHA - Docosahexaenoic acid - in fish oil is essential for the growth and functional development of the brain in infants and is also required for the maintenance of normal brain function in adults. Plentiful DHA in the diet improves learning ability wheras diets deficient in DHA are associated with deficits in learning.
Domino
Dragon
DHA and cholesterol
DHA usually increases the HDL LDL cholesterol ratio and decreases the total cholesterol HDL ratio - which should decrease the risk for coronary artery disease at least as far as the older theories approached it. What you really need to look at is your TG(triglycerides)/HDL ratio - as a better predictor of heart disease. Average American is 3.3, if your less than 1.7 = low = good news, greater than 6 = high = bad news as a predictor of heart disease.
After reading the above post about the TG/HDL ratio being a more accurate indicator of risk of problems caused by cholesterol I found one of my blood tests taken after starting to take fish oil. Here is a summary of the results.
After taking fish oil:
* Total cholesterol rose about 6% from 6.5 to 6.9. Not good.
* HDL (the good cholesterol) dropped 17% from 1.2 to 1.0 Not good.
* LDL (the bad cholesterol) rose 17% from 4.2 to 4.9 Not good.
* Triglycerides (bad if high) dropped 8% from 2.4 to 2.2 Good.
The relatively large (about 17%) rise in the bad cholesterol was matched by an identical (about 17%) drop in the good cholesterol. A whopping 34% change in the wrong direction in the difference between the good and bad cholesterol!
Needless to say considering that I also have another risk factor (high blood pressure caused by my arthritis medication) I stopped taking the fish oil.
I think this shows that people with arthritis taking medication need to be careful taking anything involving the liver. I believe that my liver was already straining to metabolise the arthritis medication and couldn't cope with the added burden of regulating my cholesterol. Clearly in my case taking fish oil was not good.
I’m not sure if my calculations of the TG/HDL ratios are correct but going on the previous post before the fish oil the ratio was 2.4/1.2 = 2
After taking fish oil the ratio was 2.2/1.0 = 2.2 a slight worsening of the ratio but according to the previous post below the American average.
This is very surprising to me when my total cholesterol was 6.9 which is considered high enough for the doctor I was seeing at the time to urge me to start taking cholesterol lowering drugs.
Perhaps my calculation of the TG/HDL ratios was wrong as it indicates a lower than average risk of heart attack yet the lab that did the test indicates in the analysis of the results that only my HDL (good cholesterol) was acceptable at 1.0 when the recommended level is greater than 1.0. All my other figures were outside the recommended levels.
The figures I have given may be a bit confusing to US readers as cholesterol is measured differently in Australia to the US but suffice to say that the individual figures are nearly all worse than recommended levels going by the advice given on the print out of the test results. Yet my calculation of the TG/HDL ratios indicates a lower than average risk. I guess I must have misunderstood how to calculate the ratios or done the calculation wrongly.
I suspect that its the LDL/HDL ratio that the 3.3 US average metioned in the previous post referred to. This would produce figures of 3.5 before taking fish oil and 4.9 after taking fish oil-both unhealthy given that 3.3 is the US average. This makes sense because it is in line with the indications on the printout of my test results that my cholesterol levels were not very healthy.
I ignored the doctor’s advice to take cholesterol lowering drugs as I was loath to add another drug to the ones I was already taking.
The same doctor also wanted me to take medication to lower my raised blood pressure caused by the medication I take for arthritis.
I also ignored the doctor’s suggestion to take anti-hypertensive drugs (my blood pressure is between 70/120 & 80/120 when not taking medication for arthritis and rises for a few hours to as high as 160/100 and then back to 90/140 and finally back to close to normal after maybe 10 or 12 hours) as I was very reluctant to add another drug to the ones I was already taking.
If I had blindly followed this doctor and taken the extra drugs and then found that taking the antihypertensive and cholesterol lowering drugs had produced more undesirable side effects the doctor would probably then have urged me to take more medication to counter these side effects and so and so and so on until I rattled from all the pills I was taking!
I no longer see that doctor.
ToPo-
Thank Goodness someone who thinks like me!!!!
I was Nopain but had to reregister...Check out Adrenal stress disorder online. You can learn about ALL the problems caused by a malfunctioning adrenal gland.....I take NO TOXIC DRUGS and live Pain Free....No one believes I have RA from the way I can function..Go figure..Sounds like everyone taking the Alternative Toxic chemicals are still in pain and experiencing terrible side affects.....Like WHY?????
My DR. put me on...Adrenal,Desiccated,Drenamin,Pantothennic Acid 500,This is for the swelling...,I added Magnesium, B6,Potassium combo...for tight muscles and to relieve cramping...works for headaches and digestive problems...
My pain went away after a few weeks on this combo and I have been pain free for 2 years...
Before this couldn't even dress myself..I was in terrible pain....
Researched mag. and found out studies show most Americans are deficiet..Needed by every cell in your body to form properly...Very interesting info....They use it in Calif. for Migraine treatment. Helps your muscles to work like The heart....I also take flax seed oil...It cleans out your liver and lymph system causing your metabolism to run more efficient.
Everyone wants a microwave fix...it took years to get this way!!
Is there anything that anyone knows about that can reduce the sed rate in the blood?We have found that by giving your body back the very things it needs seems to fix the symtoms. www.alphaflex.com gives very detailed studies and reports on why. Please let me know what this information means to you also.
Take care, Carol
[QUOTE=dragon]Hi Steve
I never meant to infer that fish oil worsened my arthritis but rather that my arthritis continued to get worse while taking it (I took it regularly for years as my arthritis gradually worsened). You are quite correct in saying that arthritis gets worse naturally anyway. If fish oil helps alleviate your morning stiffness lucky you and by all means go on taking it. Anything that helps is good. Feverfew seems to do for me what fish oil does for you and I thank God something besides powerful pain-killers help. I may resume taking fish oil in smaller amounts if I can get my cholesterol down below the acceptable upper limit.
Edward[/QUOTE]
Hello Ed, fish oil is a natural anti inflamatory because of omega3 but omega 5 is much more potent and we found it with lots of science and reports on www.alphaflex.com Please let me know what the information means to you.