There are many in the alternate medicine community who advocate diet therapy for the treatment of arthritis, two of the best known ones are the alkaline diet and the nightshade -free diet. Orthodox medicine for the most part considers these therapies at best ineffective and at worst quackery. Fortunately you can safely try these therapies for yourself and see if they work as well for you as others have claimed they have for themselves.
The alkaline and nightshade-free diets may or may not work for you but pharmacuetical medications may not either and best of all you can do both if you like.
The alkaline diet as it’s name suggests, is aimed at lowering the body’s acidity, the rationale is that the body becomes more acidic when there is inflammation in it.
The nightshade -free diet is about eliminating foods in the solanaceae (nightshade) family because people with sensitivities or allergies to them are, it is claimed, more likely to get an inflammatory response when they eat them. Nightshade crops include capsicum, egg plant, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and tamarilloes.
It is important that with either diet you are not lacking essential vitamins and minerals, for instance if you love tomatoes and normally you get most of your vitamin C from them and then eliminate tomatoes from your diet, you must get your vitamin C from elsewhere. This does not mean that you have to stock up on expensive suppliments, just choose a healthy balance from the foods that you can have.
If you are going to find out if a dietary approach to your arthritis is going to work or not, being consistent is important and so is trying it long enough to show some results. If it makes you feel worse stop it.
If you are on pharmaceutical medication don’t mix it with herbal medication without consulting a pharmacist as they can react with one another, elimination diets and medicines should not be confused with one another.
There is nothing wrong with doing your own research by reading and listening to different ideas and opinions, the quality of online information is improving all the time because the demand for self-help knowledge is there. The popularity of cooking shows and the plethora of cook books now available shows that people want to eat real wholesome food- not many diets, recommend processed foods including those listed above.
Unfortunately arthritic conditions can recur, the older you get the more things break down and your body become less tolerant to mistreatment. Whether it is rheumatiod or psoriatic arthritis, PMR, fibromyalgia or some other auto immune condition causing your inflammation learn all you can about it once you get it properly diagnosed.
You wouldn’t put kerosene into your car so please show your stomach some respect and eat well.