Curing Rheumatoid Arthritis – Removing the Causes
Over the three and a half plus decades in which I’ve had rheumatoid arthritis, the severity of my symptoms has varied greatly day by day, even hour by hour. Stress, weather, sleep, exercise all had an impact but I eventually discovered that my diet was the most powerful symptom-determining factor.
I had a low-level tooth/gum infection throughout this time which gradually became worse in more recent years to the point where it became a critical health issue and I had to get it treated. I had a course of powerful antibiotics which significantly reduced the infection and I later had the tooth removed and the socket cleaned. I now believe that this tooth infection set the stage for the development of my rheumatoid arthritis by releasing pathogenic bacteria over a long period of time and compromising my immune system. The combination of dietary triggers (via leaky gut) and the bacterial infection from the tooth caused and promoted my RA.
I came to realise many years ago that when I stopped eating (apart from filtered water) all my symptoms would reduce then disappear. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, I could only maintain this for a few days at a time. It was very ironic that eating (essential for survival) was actually killing me.
So, I began to experiment with my diet and spent many many years trying to isolate and identify the particular foods that were causing my symptoms (at this stage I wasn’t taking the tooth infection seriously). I subsequently read dozens of books on this specific subject, all very interesting but most of them contradictory.
Unfortunately, although I tried hundreds of times over a thirty odd year period I could never produce a diet that worked and still allowed me to be healthy. Drinking water and breathing fresh air just wasn’t enough :-)
I did manage to identify a number of foods (and food substances) which were particularly devastating to me, and I was very optimistic each time that removing these from my diet would cure my illness. Alas, no… I realised that there had to be some thing (or things) causing a reaction that I was eating all the time, no matter which diet variation I tried.
The problem was (still is) that in the real world I had to earn a living, run my company, take care of hundreds of things every day, every week… It was almost impossible to stick to any kind of test diet without drifting off slightly or becoming discouraged and giving up.
Whenever the stress increased, the accuracy of my dietary experiments would decrease. After working fourteen hours on my computer or on-site, it was difficult to avoid drinking a coffee or making a quick snack that wasn’t quite within my test limitations ;-)
The problem is, in my experience with rheumatoid arthritis, it doesn’t matter how healthy you are, how good your diet is, or how old you are, if you eat the wrong thing you become ill.
Ultimately I did develop a diet which effectively cured my rheumatoid arthritis for a period of several years, eventually however, my tooth infection gradually became worse and my diet was no longer enough to maintain remission. At this point I sought treatment for the infection and later had the tooth removed, but due to the infection and the antibiotic treatment I received, as well as mistakes made by several doctors; my RA became even more aggressive and destructive than before.
Since then I’ve been trying to recover for the second time and reach the point where I’m in remission again or effectively cured. This time around it’s been much more difficult and I’ve had to do a tremendous amount of work and research to achieve modest results for myself (so far). The reason I’m writing this is because I feel certain that the knowledge I’ve gained through this process will help fellow rheumatoid arthritis sufferers to reduce their symptoms, halt the progression of their disease, and hopefully in many cases reverse it. I know for myself, if I’d had this knowledge just five years ago I could have maintained my cure and stayed in remission, and avoided all of the subsequent suffering and wasted time. I’d be extremely happy if I could help even one other person to avoid my current situation.
At this point I’m going to update this page to reflect my current (as of 2018) diet and lifestyle which is based on everything I’ve learned and experienced since I originally wrote the content for this page. I’ll leave my original, earlier conclusions and RA diet cure below towards the end of this page. It was effective at the time and may be helpful for those who don’t want to adopt a fully whole food plant-based diet.
My Whole Food Plant-Based Anti-Rheumatoid Arthritis Diet (2018)
I now eat a whole food plant-based diet because prior to adopting this diet I wasn’t making any progress with my RA. My current diet is made up from the following whole food groups.
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Legumes
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Grains
- Fungii
I don’t eat any processed foods, fast foods, packaged foods, snack foods, cafe or restaurant foods or alcohol. I don’t eat anything with an ingredients list.
I don’t eat any added processed oils or fats.
I don’t eat any meat, dairy or any other animal products.
I’ve minimised my added salt intake to a maximum of 1.5 g per day, often I don’t have any added salt.
Likewise, I’ve minimised my added sugar intake to 5 g per day or less.
Currently, I take only two supplements; B12 and an algae derived DHA.
I drink plenty of filtered water.
I try to obtain around twenty minutes of sunshine each day when possible in order to obtain my D hormones.
I try to sleep seven hours each night starting before midnight when possible.
I aim to do at least forty-five minutes of cardiovascular exercise each day.
The summary above represents the base of my current anti-rheumatoid arthritis lifestyle and I’ve highlighted the most important components of it. It’s not an easy lifestyle to adopt but it is very simple, and based on current knowledge it’s by far the most health promoting and disease preventing lifestyle, not just in terms of rheumatoid arthritis but for all other chronic diseases.
To treat my rheumatoid arthritis I’m combining the above lifestyle with the identification and elimination of RA triggers. As I mentioned earlier it’s important to have a health promoting lifestyle as a base but for the treatment of RA it’s extremely important to remove inflammatory triggers.
For the majority of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers the most common inflammatory triggers are usually; dairy products, gluten-containing grains, nightshade vegetables, corn, trans-fats, saturated fat (especially animal fat), any highly processed so-called foods, cigarettes, alcohol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (speak with your medical practitioner before changing any medication), and citrus fruits. Regardless of specific triggers which vary from person to person, I believe in all cases of RA that dairy products should be removed from the diet immediately.
I’ve found that the best approach is to start with a very simple starch-based meal and eat that for a week and see if RA symptoms improve. The starch-based meal should be as simple as possible for example rice and broccoli with a little added sea salt, or buckwheat and Brussels sprouts with some added sea salt :-) as long as you obtain enough calories from the starch base and include some greens then this should form a safe starting point for the identification of food-based RA triggers. If symptoms calm down after eating this simple meal for about a week then individual new food items can be introduced one at a time for a period of two days each time, whilst monitoring symptoms. If you react badly to a particular food item, remove it again for a period of two days and then try a different food item. A highly nutritious and enjoyable diet can then be developed based on whole foods, diet which no longer triggers or aggravates RA symptoms.
I’m currently creating a number of recipes with photographs and videos which I will post here on this page to help fellow RA sufferers who want to trial my method of treating rheumatoid arthritis :-) in the meantime, I’ve provided quite a lot of information and tips in some of my more recent posts including explanations of why I think this approach offers the best chance of recovery.
My original (old) anti-rheumatoid arthritis diet can be found below, this is from 2009 but I prefer my new approach which I’ve described above (2018).
I Managed to Build a Safe Anti-Rheumatoid Arthritis Diet (2009)
As I explained in my ‘About Me‘ page; some time ago with some deduction and reasoning but mostly luck, I finally discovered some foods which were safe for me (at the time) :-)
So, here is the result of my initial twenty-eight years of study, research and experimentation. This worked for me, not just a bit, not just sometimes; it worked 100% as long as I stuck to the diet. However, it wasn’t easy and required stupid amounts of willpower. So if you are going to try this, then follow these instructions literally. If you’ve known the pain of arthritis, then you should be able to find the willpower to give it a go. You’ve nothing to lose (except maybe a few pounds in weight) and everything to gain :-) Also, keep an eye on my latest posts for more recent insights into RA and for my latest dietary changes.
Obviously, if you’re already on a very strict diet prescribed by your doctor, or if you suffer from another illness which a change in diet may adversely affect, then seek medical advice before making any changes. Then use common sense.
In my own experience, I would suggest trying this for one month if you can manage. If it’s going to work for you, you’ll know within this time. In fact, you should notice a difference within a day or so, but persevere anyway.
Foods and Other Substances Bad for Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Cigarettes.
- Alcohol.
- Illegal substances (I have to mention this, because many people use them and they will have an effect on the success of this solution).
- Junk food: burgers, fish and chips, curries, pizzas, fizzy drinks etc.
- Processed foods, ready meals, mixed foods, TV dinners, microwavable stuff etc.
- All fried food, all baked food, all grilled food. No cooked fat or oil whatsoever.
Stick to this diet and this diet only, nothing else literally, no tap water, no fruit drinks, no nibbles, no one off chocolates, no sips of your friend’s coffee, don’t even use toothpaste or gargle with mouthwash! You have to put only the following foods into your body and nothing else (apart from any essential prescribed drugs of course), ideally for a month.
If you’re taking pain killers or NSAIDS by your own choice, i.e. you decide when to take them to suit your pain levels, then try to reduce the quantity or frequency or remove them altogether after the first day, and see if you can manage without them.
Here Is the Diet That Removed the Symptoms of My Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Filtered water (use one of the many carbon filtering systems available).
- Organic tea (bags).
- Natural unrefined cane sugar.
- Soy milk (I initially used Sainsbury’s own brand, but subsequently switched to organic soy milk with D3).
- LoSalt, the actual brand name one, not an equivalent (later I switched to Himalayan Pink Salt).
- Black pepper – buy the peppercorns and grind your own, don’t use normal pepper powder.
- Extra Virgin, cold-pressed olive oil. Don’t use any other oil or fat, at all.
- Potatoes.
- Carrots.
- Parsnips.
- Swedes.
- Brussels sprouts.
- Cabbage.
- Broccoli.
- Bananas.
- Tinned tuna fish in spring water (only spring water!).
- Tomato puree (the bottled stuff made from tomatoes and more tomatoes!)
OK, that’s it. Make your tea with the filtered water, soy milk and unrefined sugar. Clean (but don’t peel) the vegetables and steam them using the method described below. Mix the tuna fish with olive oil, tomato puree, a little LoSalt and some black pepper, then blend it together. Put the steamed veg on a plate, put a little LoSalt, pepper and olive oil on them, and then empty the fish paste onto the veg and enjoy! Eat bananas as a snack, maybe two or three each day if you like.
It was actually quite nice, but I must admit after 2400 servings or so, it began to lose its appeal :-)
Steaming the Veg
Use a typical steaming arrangement (one of the many tiered pan sets that are available) or just use my method. I used a medium sized pan with a few centimetres of filtered water in the bottom, then I placed a colander type pan over this which contained the veg. I put the lid on the top, set the flame to a fairly low setting and let the boiling water do its job. Usually it took about twenty minutes or so. Watch that it doesn’t boil dry ;-) I did this many times!
Making the Fish Paste
Use a small hand blender if you have one, there’s less washing up to do later. Open a medium tin of tuna fish (in spring water!) and drain off the water as much as you can, you just want the fish. Empty the fish into the blender cup. Add about an egg cup full of olive oil (or less if you prefer). Pour some tomato puree in straight from the bottle, about two or three egg cups full. Add a little LoSalt and black pepper.
Screw the twizzy thing onto the blender cup and shake it up (it helps with the blending process). Then blend it until it becomes a smooth paste.
Final points
I just want to stress that the above list of foods is all that should pass your lips! Nothing else at all if possible. This is a perfectly healthy diet by any standards and you must try to manage on it if you want to give this a proper chance.
I have since found other food items which are OK for me and I am continuing to experiment. I will post the results here on my blog and I would appreciate it if you could do likewise for the benefit of other readers (myself included). You are welcome to comment at the foot of this page or on any relevant post.
Good luck, try your best and I sincerely hope it works for you too :-)
gael says
hi Brian i find your site very interesting!!! ive had RA since 15 only diagnosed a few years ago and yes an happy cheerful and mask how bad it is. I had 6 weeks of raw food and plenty water and this really improved symptoms but with 3 kids it is so easy to slide into bad habits. I agree that wheat and dairy are problematic with RA but you are right if other triggers arent cut out it doesnt help matters that much. There are hair test,blood tests that can show sensitivities to foods which could help individuals target problem foods. I am going to try your diet and get back to you and look forward to an improvement in symptoms.
Brian says
Hi Gael, I really appreciate your taking time to comment, thanks very much and it’s very nice to know you find my blog interesting.
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had RA since 15, that’s really unfair and must have been very hard for you. I also understand your comment about masking the symptoms.
Yes, a raw food diet should work very well (Leslie Kenton wrote a great deal about this, I think she was one of the first to advocate a largely raw diet for general good health and she in turn was inspired by Max Benner), I’m glad it helped you but as you say, it’s tough to maintain. Water is an important part of any RA solution and good for general health as you know very well of course :-)
Thanks Gael, yes wheat and dairy have been suspected many times as a cause or contributor to RA (I’m preparing a post at the moment based on some research into vitamin D deficiency and wheat), I suspect the culprit in wheat might be ‘gluten’ for example and in dairy perhaps ‘lactose’.
Exactly, you have obviously noticed with RA, that a great deal of self-control and effort produces some benefit yet it can be easily held back by some (often quite small) common, frequent addition to the diet (or other environmental factor) that is hard to identify, for example it may be sodium, fluoride, mold spores, yeasts, chlorine, trans-fats (definitely in my case) etc.
Good point, yes I have tried the ‘Nutron’ test for example to see if it would help identify food items to which I react negatively.
I appreciate you giving my diet a try, I sincerely hope it helps you. In my case the relief from pain was very obvious and occurred over just a few days. At one point I stuck to my diet for just about two years non-stop and didn’t have a single symptom of rheumatoid arthritis. It always seems to work well at preventing symptoms and also relieving and removing mild to medium symptoms, unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be able to reverse severe inflammation where there is excessive heat, these are the times when I visit my specialist for very specific localised treatment.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help in any way or offer moral support :-)
Eleesa says
Hi Brian…just found your website and having a read through it…am so interested in your ‘diet’…before I started on Methetrexate I went to see a kinesiologist…she recommended I cut out certain foods…I stuck to her ‘diet’ for some months…it didn’t make any difference to the pain, but I lost some weight was was a good point! Have you tried alternative therapies? (Sorry, maybe you’ve already stated but am only getting to review your website now)
Also, have you heard about ‘wheatgrass’? I heard that it was a great help with RA.
Brian says
Hi Eleesa, thanks so much for your comment, I am sorry for my late reply.
First of all, well done for trying to find other solutions and also for sticking to a specific diet and giving it a try for so long… that takes some doing in itself. Your kinesiologist was on the right track. I’m sorry that specific diet didn’t help with the pain.
The problem is that no matter how healthy a diet may be, no matter how well it matches one of the many recommended diets for RA (or related gluten-free, dairy-free etc.), if there is still one single element in the diet that triggers your RA, the diet will have little effect. I’m still learning after nearly 30 years of research, but these elements can range from general food items/groups such as dairy (hence a non-dairy diet for Rheumatoid Arthritis can sometimes work.) to potentially single chemicals or even single proteins.
In general I think that a lot of cases of RA are caused by a food allergy/reaction/intolerance. The rest of the cases have a genetic or disease related cause – and it may often be a combination of factors. The first thing to do is to find the best possible (and lowest dose) medical treatment available to prevent further damage while you try to discover the cause of your RA through your own efforts. It sounds like you have already done the first and have begun to work on the second :-)
Now, the idea of using a diet to try to discover or eliminate the potential cause of your RA is great… but a standard diet may be a bit too general to work unless you have a bit of luck too. Somewhere in your past there will be clues as to what brought about your RA symptoms and these may help you to figure out what is making your immune system so angry :) I would recommend looking at these and also giving my ‘diet’ a try for perhaps a week or so; you would soon know if it is working for you. The aim is to try to stop eating/taking in the elements that are causing your most severe reactions. In my case for example things like chocolate, concentrated orange juice and heated fats.
Regarding Wheatgrass; yes I have read about this over many years but have not tried it myself. However, I will look into this again and give it a try – then post my results here, thanks for bringing it up. :)
Hope that helps a little Eleesa – work with your doctor/specialist but also keep trying to see if you can find a specific cause for your RA.
Brian says
Thanks Verdell, I appreciate your comment.
kitty says
I have been living with RA since I was 16 and I have been told that eating a plant based diet (similar to your food recommendations) can reverse RA, but it is so hard to remain loyal to this diet. What strategies do you use to keep yourself on track?
Brian says
Hi Kitty, thanks for your comment.
I’m really sorry to hear that you’ve had RA since 16, to some extent I can understand how difficult that must have been for you at that age. In terms of strategy, there are a couple of things I can offer.
First, in my case the effect of RA on my whole life was so bad that the relief and freedom I eventually obtained from my diet was enough to keep me on track, for a very specific reason… While I was living with the pain, restrictions and negative psychological effects of RA, I began to accept them as part of my life, I forgot what it was like to be OK, I put up with everything for so long that I no longer realised just how ill I actually was… There were so many things wrong that I lost track of them. When I (quite suddenly) became well again, the difference was so extreme and everything was so much better that it gave me that initial incentive to stick to the diet.
Second, I found that after some time (about a month or so), it was relatively easy to stick to the diet anyway, because I became used to it, I got into a routine, it wasn’t too bad or too difficult. The only thing I was carefull about, was not allowing myself to become too hungry :-) I would eat bananas regularly and drink glasses of soy milk or cups of tea, that way I never became too tempted to eat something outside the diet. Bear in mind that I worked (and still work) around 10 to 12 hours every day so I really tested myself.
I am testing more foods now and I have also discovered some additional interesting and positive effects caused by this diet which I will write about shortly.
Kitty, there is one other thing which I would like to mention; the sooner the causes of RA are removed, the easier it is to reverse the effects and damage caused by it. When I think about how much worse my future could have been, this gives me an extra incentive to stick to my diet.
Please feel free to get in touch if you need any encouragement :-)
Tahirah AbuBakr says
Thank you so much for sharing your cure. Right now I am in so much pain. I will began to work with your plan and post other result as I go. I am a Chef who cook for others on a daily bases. However, I am being challenged with continue use of my hands.Please keep in touch with me.
Tahirah
Brian says
Hi Tahirah, thanks very much for your comment.
I am sorry to reply so late here on my blog, but I did contact you directly (on the 7th of September) via your Yahoo email address shortly after I read your comment.
I am so sorry about your situation, it must be very difficult for you (as a chef) using your fingers, hands and arms all day and also presumably, standing up all day too. Do you have ‘rheumatoid’ arthritis Tahirah, and are you taking any medicine for it at the moment?
I am happy to keep in touch Tahirah, let me know if you need any help. In the meantime, take care and good luck with your work.