Unfortunately, I had to neglect my blogs for some considerable time due to disease and pressure from my businesses. This has been very frustrating for me but I really had no choice, my work pays the bills and I had reached the point where I was working twelve to fourteen hours every day, including weekends.
Due to the additional stress from work I strayed from my diet and became very ill. I had huge problems with my knees and this triggered inflammation in many other joints too.
Unfortunately I had to keep working on-site and away from my office and home, so I began to eat and drink things which I knew would cause problems, but at the same time I needed the energy and often the caffeine too :-)
Eventually I reached the point where I needed to have cortisone injections in my knees again, in order to continue working. I kept saying to myself, I will just get on top of things then go back to my diet and recover but new problems kept getting in the way.
The Original Cause of my Rheumatoid Arthritis – Discovered in Turkey!
As it happens, I recently went to Turkey to be with my mother-in-law (actually anneciğim in Turkish) because she was about to have a major operation. Unfortunately I was still ill myself and I became worse on the journey due to the flights, airports, taxis and such.
The first few days there I was very ill and had to go to hospital for treatment. While waiting for mum’s exact operation date to be confirmed, I also saw several other doctors myself regarding my RA (mostly friends of the family). This is where it got interesting!
I will write in more detail about my visit and the things I discovered there later, but in a nutshell; I discovered one of the original causes (possibly the only/main cause) of my rheumatoid arthritis :-)
The Turkish medical system is very flexible and responsive, and tests results & X-rays can be obtained almost immediately. As a result I was able to accumulate useful test results, scans and expert opinions in a very short timescale – just a few hours.
It was soon explained to me that I had a long standing blood infection that required urgent treatment; systemic inflammatory response syndrome – a kind of sepsis which can be fatal. My doctors there were amazed that I was still alive and equally amazed that I had managed to fly to Turkey in such a condition. They arranged for me to be admitted to hospital for treatment and monitoring and I started taking oral antibiotics soon after an initial intravenous injection.
After discussing the history of my symptoms and studying my many new test results they concluded that I had probably had this infection to some degree for at least the last twenty-five years, but that it was currently life threatening. If I had not gone to Turkey, I would perhaps never have realised the serious state of my disease and would have continued to believe that my symptoms were just a flare-up of my existing RA – and possibly died.
My RA Caused by Tooth Infection Missed by Doctors and Dentists
I was immediately given powerful antibiotics and then referred to a dental surgeon in a local specialist hospital (another family friend) as my doctors suspected a long standing tooth abscess was the original source of the infection. In our discussions, I explained that I had had a problem tooth for about thirty years and that it often caused pain, bad breath and various other symptoms. I also explained that I had brought it up with several of my UK GPs over the years but that they had always dismissed it as a possible cause of my RA and had not considered it to be a serious problem. Unfortunately, after several soul destroying attempts to obtain dental treatment in the UK, I eventually gave up and just accepted the pain. Had I known the extent of the problem, I would have persevered of course and obtained treatment, somehow.
The dental surgeon confirmed my doctors’ suspicions with the help of various scans, examinations and blood tests. Again, he could not believe the extent of the infection and explained that it was difficult for him to remove the problem tooth in my current condition as it was too badly infected. He prescribed additional specific antibiotics to complement the ones obtained from my doctors and asked me to call in periodically to monitor my progress. He also shared his findings with my doctors.
A few days into taking the antibiotics, my symptoms started to improve, particularly in my mouth of course but also I noticed a greater range of movement in some of my fingers and my feet were no longer swollen. A week later whilst discussing new blood test results with my doctors, they confirmed that I had achieved about a 30% improvement in the severity of my infection (apparently enough to silence the alarm bells). Following on from this, they advised me that it would take between one and three years of oral antibiotic treatment to completely clear the infection, along with appropriate dental treatment. My doctors also explained that intravenous antibiotic therapy would be more effective but since I was only there for a short time, it wasn’t really practical because I wouldn’t be able to continue the treatment in the UK.
The upshot of all this is, I have proof of what I always suspected to be the case; that my joint inflammation was caused (in part or wholly) by some type of infection, and now I know what it was and how it started; a streptococci group – tooth/gum infection which gradually became a hidden abscess inside my gum/jaw where most of the infected tooth broke away and left a deep hole which never healed.Streptococcus mutans causes plaque, tooth erosion and cavities and this was probably what initiated my problem decades ago. However, my systemic infection appears to have been caused by group A or B streptococcus originating either directly from my long-term tooth infection/abscess, or by external infection from some contaminated food or drink due to the susceptibility of my broken tooth and the deep surrounding abscess. Unfortunately, because of the rush to administer antibiotics and because I was feeling so ill, I never managed to obtain further more detailed tests to confirm exactly which strain caused or worsened my joint inflammation. However I suspect ‘pyogenes’ because of my symptoms; swollen lymph nodes, intermittent fever, increased joint inflammation, flu symptoms, skin rash etc.
This of course makes me think that there could be many more people out there suffering with rheumatoid arthritis or other inflammatory conditions, who may have a tooth related infection (there appear to be three types of tooth/gum abscesses) and who may not realise its importance as a potential cause of their disease.
I want to recommend that if you have any kind of tooth decay/pain/abscess and also suffer from RA, get your teeth looked at and get any problems fixed straight away, even if like me you have been putting it off or putting up with it. Also, if you do a little research, you will quickly find a number of papers and articles like this one confirming the link between abscess infection and rheumatoid arthritis and this example of a link between a dental streptococcal infection and rheumatoid arthritis.
“Streptococcus” image is public domain
Mary-anne Lindenberg says
Hi Nancy
which Doctor did you go to in Surrey? I have had terrible joint pain for 3 years and also an untreated tooth infection which comes and goes..I am going to have my tooth pulled out in 2 weeks.Do those anti biotics make you feel bad? Happy to hear you are almost back to normal. Thank you for your comment
mary anne
Brian Darby says
Hi again Mary-anne, I think Nancy missed your comment so I’ll try to answer instead.
I think there are three or four doctors in the UK that use the Antibiotic Protocol, send an email to this address and ask for a list of AP doctors in the UK: apdoctors@roadback.org
If you’ve had your tooth removed then that should have helped but if you still have joint pain and you want to know more about the antibiotics, have a look at these sites: The Road Back Foundation and Reversing Arthritis with Antibiotic Protocol.
Hope that helps Mary-anne :-)
Melanie says
This blog is so great and I’m hoping that finally I will be on the road to recovery.
I live in Texas and happy to read the comments from overseas. Tomorrow is my birthday and it’s Memorial Day weekend here. Instead of being with family for the festivities I got a terrible tooth ache yesterday. Between the tooth and my ongoing neck pain of the past four or five years that has literally wrecked my enjoyment of life. Last night I wanted to shoot myself – the pain was that unbearable. Fortunately I’m one of the few Texans that doesn’t own a gun.
A friend told me yesterday when the tooth ache started to try oil of cloves. I marched myself up to the natural grocery store and purchased some. It seemed to help initially but I bit down hard on a grain of sea salt at dinner last night and the pain escalated. The natural grocer also recommended swishing coconut oil – for thirty minutes. I tried that around 3:00 a.m. and then resorted to taking a pain pill. Today is Saturday and my day has been all about my pain. I put an emergency call in to my dentist and he advised me to get a couple of things and to continue taking pain meds until he can see me on Tuesday. This same dentist told me two years ago when I had pain in the same tooth that is crowned from a previous root canal that he could find nothing wrong with my tooth but I insisted there was pain and ended up seeing an endodontist – who also said I looked fine. This morning, the dentist told me that possibly at that time it was the beginning of an infection that wasn’t picked up on x-rays. Hmmm. So in the past two years, my neck pain doubled and every aspect of my life has been impacted. I work from home and wear either a heat patch or a neck brace and constantly taking hot baths for a few moments of relief. I suspected back two years ago that the arthritis was related to an infection from the tooth because I remember going to the internet then and searching to see if there was a connection.
I’m glad to see that you also recommend coconut oil and I’m also going to start with the sea salt rinse. I hope in the coming weeks I can get to the “root” of my tooth issue, infection and maybe – just maybe turn around the dibilitating neck pain.
Your blog and the comments here give me a bit of hope.
Mel
Brian Darby says
Hi Melanie, thanks for your comment and Happy Birthday to you! :-)
Also, thanks for your kind comments about my blog.
Really sorry to hear about your neck problem and toothache but I’m glad you don’t own a gun!
Your toothache could be helped with oregano oil. Clove oil is good but oregano oil is more effective for toothache. Coconut oil ‘pulling’ or swishing is excellent for preventing tooth and gum problems (and gradually reducing infections) but no so effective at relieving the pain once it starts.
As you say it’s possible your neck and tooth problems are related and coconut oil pulling and salt rinsing will help to reduce any infection over time. If you can’t get to the bottom of the tooth issue with the help of your dentists, then you will need to research and work to resolve the issues yourself. The coconut oil and salt are a good start and you should continue with those but there are many other things that you can do to help. First, you will have to look at your sugar and refined carbohydrate intake and reduce these as much as possible since even small amounts of these will feed any infection in your teeth or gums and slow your recovery. If you like sugar in tea or coffee for example, then try changing to xylitol for a while, it tastes about the same as sugar but actively kills certain pathogenic bacteria in your mouth.
If you haven’t already, then switch to a natural toothpaste containing some essential oils (neem, clove, thyme for example), there are plenty available online through a quick Google search. Also, I would recommend a ‘sonic’ toothbrush and a water pick; again plenty of information about these online, or let me know if you want specific info.
Melanie, if you could try avoiding milk and milk products for say two or three weeks then you might find that it relieves your neck pain; milk is one of the worst offenders when it comes to joint problems (including the spine and jaw). Your tooth may be the cause or trigger for your problems but there are probably other factors already contributing to your neck pain.
Add a cupful of Epsom salts to your hot baths too, this will lengthen the pain relief period.
I see you live in Texas so you should have plenty of sunshine, but do you get out in the sun much? Vitamin D is a big factor in terms of joint pain and fighting infection. If you spend a lot of time working indoors at home (in front of the computer for example) it may be that your D level is low. You can ask your doctor to test your vitamin D level.
I sincerely hope you make progress soon :-)
Darlene Walsh says
I was making supper tonight and I couldn’t even cut my veggies because my hands were in such pain, it is that pain that led me to my iPad and to your blog. I just googled; Arthritis related to tooth infection and ta da, there you were.
I may have found a glimmer of hope in reading your story. I have not been feeling well; joint pains, stiffness, digestive issues, jaw pain…although chronic seeming, what concerned me was a sudden worsening of pain in my hands. I couldn’t even bend my fingers without extreme pain.
The tipping point was when my cheek became very swollen and after 2 rounds of antibiotics being provided for what was described as a blocked Salvatory gland didn’t take my mouth tenderness away I finally went to my family doctor and then my dentist.
My doctor ran the standard tests one does when you’re fishing for a reason of un wellness, in addition he ran some tests for arthritis. Well the tests came back just last week and all seemed fine except that there was a result that indicated that I had inflammation in my body. My doctor said it did indicate that I may have the beginnings of arthritis and in a years time he might want to deal with that more indepthly.
My doctor is a pragmatic kind of guy I thought because a year earlier I complained about my chronic neck and back pain and he asked me if I could go about my day ok? Can I get out of bed? I said yes, but not without pain…with that being the case he said “oh key doke eee” we don’t want to go down that road quite yet then. That road being X-Rays, Surgery and the like I suspect. He gave a script for some muscle relaxers and that was that.
Ok my back and neck pain isn’t bad enough to take any kind of action and now my inflammation and stiffness isn’t to the point of intervention…my face and jaw still feel tender and are still throbbing. I am exhausted. I decided as a last ditch effort to feel better I make an appointment with my dentist and although she didn’t find anything outwardly wrong, she was concerned with an upper tooth that I had a root canal on years ago.
She explained there may be a crack in the tooth she can’t see or perhaps an infection that the X-ray can’t show and wants to make an appointment with an Endodontics Clinic to make sure all is well. I am now waiting to hear back from the clinic regarding the appointment. It should take a week I am thinking.
I hope Canada is as up to speed as Turkey is on the connection between Arthritis and dental infection. I guess I will find out because I will get into the root canal specialist and if there is in fact infection I will be back to my doctor’s office in a flash!
Thank you soooo much for sharing your story; who would have thought dental infection and Arthritis could be connected in any way. I feel more hopeful for sure but most importantly I feel a little more empowered…go me.
I will let you know what I find out.
Brian Darby says
Hi Darlene and welcome, thanks very much for sharing your story, I appreciate your taking time to write it.
I’m really sorry you have so much pain, I understand you in not being able to cut veg because of the pain in your hands. Your swollen cheek sounds like an overflow/reaction from a gum or tooth infection as you suspect, please let me know how you get on at the Endodontist appointment.
The indication of inflammation in your body was probably observed in a high CRP test result but this can be elevated for a number of reasons including a tooth/gum infection and influenza for example. It only indicates that your immune system is fighting something in your body; there can be a hundred different reasons for this and it is not an accurate indication of so-called ‘arthritis’. Your doctor’s meaning when saying ‘more in depth’ is related to NSAIDS and other anti-inflammatory treatments.
Instead of muscle relaxers you could try a magnesium citrate supplement, here is an interesting article on the importance of magnesium. There are also many foods which can help to increase your magnesium levels naturally; kelp, avocado and garlic for example.
In the meantime, before your appointment, you could try mixing a teaspoon of salt (preferably sea salt) with a small cup of warm water and then rinsing it around your mouth for a few minutes before spitting it out. Doing this a couple of times a day can help with mouth/jaw infections. Also, you could try oil pulling using cold-pressed coconut oil.
Good luck with your appointment, I hope you discover something useful :-)
You’re welcome Darlene, stay empowered – go you!
Maz says
I do not have tooth problems but another infection required me to go onto a course of antibiotics, within a day l was like a new person, l could walk properly for the first ten me in months, l felt well everywhere. I am suffering from severe knee pain that makes my life almost unbearable, l cannot take antitlammatory meds due to stomach issues. For the whole week l was on antibiotics l couod get up from sitting, get in and out of bed with no problems and even walk up and rown stairs properly instead of one step at a time, hauling myself up the banister, l felt like my life was mine again. Then the course of antibiotics ended and within days my pain returned and now l am back to being crippled.
Brian Darby says
Hi Maz, thanks for your comment.
Your story is very interesting, it sounds like you may have an underlying or chronic low-level infection which is causing your pain and when you took the antibiotics it brought it under control for a while. It might be worth treating yourself with natural antibiotics (long-term) such as garlic, onions, coconut oil (cold-pressed), thyme, vitamin C and probiotic/fermented foods such as kefir and sauerkraut (there are many more). These can be effective in curing or reducing chronic low-level infections. Also, since you have taken antibiotics, it would be a good idea to rebuild your friendly gut bacteria anyway. Celery juice and basil are very good too, they also provide some pain relief.
I understand your comments about walking up and especially down stairs one step at a time. Sorry you are struggling so much but I’m glad you found some relief for a while, I hope you can reproduce the effects using natural antibiotics. Here is a good summary of some of the better natural antibiotics.
Simon says
Hello Brian
I stumbled across your very informative blog having searched google under ‘abscess and rheumatoid arthritis’. I have had a niggling tooth for 3 or 4 years ( with persistent gum boils indicating the presence of infection) and within the last 3 months have begun to suffer inflamed and swollen fingers, shoulder, thigh and lower back pain) I also have psoriasis.
My mother incidentally suffered with chronic RA for 25 years and battled bravely largely without medication ( apart from pain killers) due to complications with methotrexate and enbrel, so I have some familiarity with the awfulness of this dibilitating disease and compounding side effects of various treatments.
My question to you is how has your condition progressed since the Turkish dental and antibiotic treatment?
Incidentally I am off to have my tooth removed on Wednesday so I’m hopeful this will help prevent any acceleration of my issues. I’ve also modified my diet and been taking large doses of vit D 3, fish oil and a fasting regime 2 days a week. I will be incorporating your diet into my regime as I can see you have done a lot of heavy lifting in this area.
Thanks for creating this blog of hope and positivity for people facing what can be one of the bleakest of diseases.
Simon
Brian Darby says
Hi Simon, I really appreciate your comment and your kind words.
I’m so sorry to hear about your mother, it takes a lot of courage to battle RA for 25 years… You obviously understand the destructive nature of RA and the often worse effects of most of the standard treatments.
Based on my own experience and research over the last 35 years (I can’t give medical advice unfortunately, I can only give my opinion) the symptoms you describe could indicate a gut problem, and it looks like you have already taken some excellent steps to sort it out. Vitamin D3, omega 3 oil and fasting are some of the best treatments for inflammation and gut problems.
I won’t ramble on just now, but if you need more information about gut bacterial balance, leaky gut and inflammation please let me know.
I just replied to Gabriela in a previous comment regarding her tooth infection, here is what I suggested and it may be helpful for you too:
“…try rinsing your mouth with sea salt dissolved in a glass of water for a couple of minutes each day. Also, have you tried oil pulling? It does work quite well with oral infections – put a small amount of cold-pressed olive or coconut oil in your mouth (a teaspoon or so) and swish it around between your teeth for a few minutes, then spit it out and rinse your mouth with the sea salt and water mixture.”
Gut problems are often associated with back pain and joint inflammation regardless of any specific diagnosis, have a quick look at this leaky gut summary.
Take good care and keep improving your diet :-)