Pain pain go away....

Please go through these links and find out more information. Avoiding dairy products may reduce your pain.

http://www.allergyconsumerreview.com/rheumatoid-arthritis.html

http://www.notmilk.com/

best wishes

Hi - After 4 years with RA, I was driving to visit a relative one beautiful sunny day when suddenly I got this god-awful pain in my wrist.  I pulled over and took all I had (basically Celebrex & Tylenol).  Didn't help much.  Eventually down the road (a month later when I saw my rheumatologist) he said, since your inflammation level is low, this must be osteoarthritis.  Further down the road I got xrays & MRI (not the first - this is the wrist where it all started.)  The end of my lower arm bones and also my wrist (carpal) bones were full of cysts.  I had had bone edema when diagnosed.  Now the bones were in more serious damage.  So RA damage can lead also to OA problems.  How is your inflammation? 

    It may sound weird, but sometimes Tylenol helps pain more than Celebrex (depends on whether it's inflammation or not).  When both of those fail, I have Percocet left from ankle surgery and carpal tunnel surgery (other wrist) that I take when I can't sleep, though I won't take Percocet continuously. 

    If it's an all-over flare, it probably is the RA.  But another possibility is fibromyalgia - your nervous system can become so stressed from the pain you're dealing with that in essence you develop nerve pain - the neurons are overstimulated and just keep firing.  Sometimes a pain killer will stop the cycle, but sometimes it backfires.  There are a few medicines for fibro (FM) now, if that is the problem.  Sometimes for a diagnosis of FM, doctors (does not have to be a rheum.) will check 18 'tender points' and if you have a certain number, it's FM.  But even that may be too rule-bound.  Pain is pain.  Is is the same kind of pain you've had before, or is it different, somehow? Does activity make it worse, or better?

     Just some suggestions to think about.

     Re: diet.  For me personally, dairy doesn't make a difference, but green peppers and red meat really do.  Studies have shown that avoiding meat in general can also reduce pain, and when I'm in the most pain, I'll go veggie for a week  (salads, beans & veggie soup, lentils & rice, whatever works for you). If you need more than veggies, and like fish, then eat fish.... Fish is better than meat (omega-3s).