It is difficult to explain to someone the pain and stiffness that you experience when you have rheumatoid arthritis. Excercising every day used to be a painful event that felt more like self mutilation than self enrichment. Celebrex took away the bulk of my pain and suffering.

So I resigned myself to the fact that Aleve or naproxem sodium would be my best friend for life. That was until reading about research concerning a compound found in red wine called resveratrol. Although I was taking resveratrol for other reasons it ended up having a profound affect on my arthritis. In fact today my joints feel twenty years younger and physical excersion that once would have made getting up from a quiet position almost impossible is now commonplace. The laughable part is that discovering this treatment and my subsequent recovery was by accident.

Rheumatoid arthrits is an autoimmune disease that affects over 4 million individuals in the US including myself. The human immune system consists of a powerful set of cells and messengers that are very effective at finding and eradicating foreign invaders. When these tools are mistakenly directed towards the body itself the result in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, is the direct destruction of joint connective tissue and significant pain, stiffness and swelling.

My grandmother had rheumatoid arthritis and it was a good possibility from a genetic standpoint that it would affect me as well. Originailly it was my belief that all my joint pain and stiffness was a direct result of my frequent exercise and age. A sports injury to my shoulder and a prescription for Celebrex changed my mind. After a few days on Celebrex my joint pain diminished significantly and missing even one day of the drug resulted in pain and stifness remission. I was resigned to take a couple Celebrex or naproxem sodium for the rest of my life.

About one year ago while reading the New York Times a certain article caught my eye. The article talked about how scientists were investigating a compound found in red grapes known as resveratrol. For many years scientists have been trying to understand why the French population eats rich foods without high rates of heart disease and diabetes when compared to Americans. Researchers discovered a compound called resveratrol that when fed to mice in significant amounts resulted in profound effects. Mice that were fed a rich diet high in fat developed diabetes and other diseases related to a high fat content diet. The mice on resveratrol did not develop the same types of disease and lived significantly longer than their non resveratrol counterparts.

Resveratrol is readily available on the Internet in supplement form. Basically large amounts of red grape husks are dried and mashed and put into capsules. Instead of drinking five bottles of wine every day just take pill. I decided why not. Research already showed that red wine was good for you and now it could be taken in larger doses without all the alcohol. The first batch of resveratrol was purchased and taken sporadically. Occasionally my web surfing would turn up other articles about resveratrol and all were positive except for one. The article said that resveratrol was heat labile and denatured at relatively low temperatures. This meant that the resvertrol that had been stored in my car was useless.