Rheumatoid Arthritis from Ask the Doctor

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Rheumatoid Arthritis from " Ask the Doctor "

_http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/arth3.php_

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Source: _Ask the Doctor about Painful Joints_ (http://www.westonaprice.org/)

_http://www.westonaprice.org/askdoctor/painfuljoints.html_

(http://www.westonaprice.org/askdoctor/painfuljoints.html)

by Dr. Tom Cowan, Weston A. Price Foundation

Question: I am a 40 year old female who has been recently diagnosed with

rheumatoid arthritis. For some time now I have just not felt well. I wake up

virtually every morning with stiffness in many of my joints. I often feel

fatigued in the day, and even occasionally feel as though I have a slight

fever.

For the past year I have taken a lot of Advil and other pain medicine with very

little relief. Now my rheumatologist wants to start me on Methotrexate. I am

worried about taking this drug and wonder whether there are any

alternatives.

Answer: This is a very good question, and one that is asked by many people

in a situation similar to yours. Recently, I had two new patients diagnosed

with rheumatoid arthritis who have done very well on my " program. "

Specifically, by changing their diets and using the natural medicines I will

discuss,

within six weeks they have felt well enough to avoid taking Methotrexate, a

dangerous immunosuppressive drug.

They have been able to get off all their pain and anti-inflammatory

medicine, and they are virtually pain-free except for some residual stiffness

in the

mornings. As a confirmation that the treatment is effective, their

sedimentation rate ( a marker for the level of inflammation in the body) has

dropped by

over 40 percent. I hope that as time goes by, even more improvement will be

seen.

To briefly go over the theory for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis I

would like to make the following points. First, rheumatoid arthritis is an

example of an inflammatory disease that has an autoimmune aetiology. This

means,

that in some people their body's immune system becomes over reactive and

starts " digesting " its own tissue—in this case the cartilage that cushions the

joints.

Why this reaction against one's own tissue develops has been the subject of

intense scrutiny, debate and research for many years. Some think the process

is initiated by an infectious agent, such as a viral or bacterial infection.

Others point to food allergens, such as milk proteins, as the agents that

incite the immune system to overreact. Once set in motion, this immune

overreaction can become truly destructive and leave the patient crippled, even

confined to a wheel chair.

For me, the key to a successful therapy of rheumatoid arthritis comes from

understanding the picture of the illness as a whole. Viewed metaphorically,

every person with rheumatoid arthritis has two phenomena at work. The first

concerns a malfunction of the inflammation process.

In " normal " inflammations, such as a cold or the flu, the fever guides the

inflammation to its successful conclusion. In rheumatoid arthritis, there is

inflammation but without the fever as its guide, thus successful resolution is

never reached.

The fire of inflammation, which normally " cleanses " the body through

eliminations of pus and mucus, is reduced to a smoldering, never-ending, cold,

wet

fire. In traditional holistic medicine, agents that increased the warmth of

the body, in particular of the joints, were used to treat this smoldering

disease.

One of these " heating " agents was the application of bee stings directly

over the joint, which dramatically increase the warmth of the joints. Herbs

like

cayenne and ginger, which provide a more gentle warming of the body and the

joints, were also used. In the realm of diet, good fats are the food type

that provides the most warmth as evidenced by the high caloric (heat-producing)

value of fats as opposed to proteins or carbohydrates.

The second metaphor that helps in understanding rheumatoid arthritis is that

the experience of having this condition is often described as having wet,

cold, achy joints. It is as though the normal circulation of the fluids has

been slowed, and the joint fluids build up, forming effusions that gradually

erode the cushiony layers between the joints.

I liken this process to what happened to me one year after I cut down a

large old willow tree from my yard. The tree was making our house overly dark.

The next year, just as my neighbor predicted, from early spring our entire

basement was flooded with cold stagnant water.

It was as though the willow tree outside our house had regulated the fluid

balance in our local ecosystem, taking excessive water out of the ground, and

recirculating it through the air. It struck me as no accident that

traditional healers, when faced with a similar situation in their patients,

looked to

the willow bark to help re-enliven and recirculate their fluids. Later on it

was discovered that willow bark contains salicylic acid, the precursor of

aspirin, the standard for all medicines used for pain and inflammation

reduction.

 

Using willow bark extract, however, is not at all the same as using chemical

aspirin. Aspirin relieves the pain temporarily and does nothing for the

underlying fluid congestion and lack of warmth. Willow bark, in contrast,

gradually helps the fluids to recirculate as it relieves the pain and helps

restore

a sense of warmth.

So there is the foundation of the therapy: a diet rich in good fats with

only about 70 grams (less than 1/2 cup) of carbohydrate food per day, similar

to

that suggested in Nourishing Traditions and The Schwarzbein Principle. If

possible, include raw cream and butter as they contain an anti-stiffness factor

that is destroyed by pasteurization.

Use Betachol from Standard Process, 1 tablet, three times per day as an

extra source of this anti-stiffness factor. Then use herbal extracts both

internally and topically that have a warming effect.

The best is Boswellia complex from Mediherb which contains ginger, tumeric,

celery root and the wonderful remedy called Boswellia. Boswellia is actually

a resin, used in Ayurvedic medicine and known to Westerners through its

appearance in the story of the birth of the Christ child as Frankincense. This

herbal resin (the oily part of the plant) was given by the wise men to

symbolize

the bringing of the warmth of the child in the depths of the cold winter.

Its intent was literally to drive out the cold from painful and stiff joints

and replace it with the feeling of warmth, movement and flexibility.

Numerous scientific studies have confirmed the remarkable " anti-inflammatory "

effect

of Boswellia extracts. Initially, I use 1 tablet three times per day. And

finally, I use Saligesic, a willow bark extract from Mediherb 1 tablet, two or

three times per day as long as there is pain.

Consistently, I have found that this treatment is very effective for not

only the acute pain of rheumatoid arthritis, but also for gradually restoring

the underlying imbalance of the patient, so that they can once again enjoy

freedom of movement and real health.

About the Author: - Tom Cowan, MD, is a physician in private practice in San

Francisco, California. His website is: _The Fourfold Path to Healing_

(http://www.fourfoldhealing.com/) .