Arthirits

My sister was diagnosed with RA about 16 years ago after the birth of her 1st child, she is now 50. She did take meds for a long time and they would ease the pain but not a lot. Just in the last year she took a job where she has been physically active. Since then she has been able to get off the meds and feels better than she has in years. I really think that the physical activity is the key.

Good luck!!

Hello D.,
I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis about 15 years ago. My doctor said that because I exercised and was in good shape, I didn't have many symptoms. I still do not to this day. The only thing that happens to me is in the winter, sometimes my fingers will "tingle" when I wake up. I get them moving around and then that is IT!
I am not a doctor, but just share with you this information in the hopes that it will be helpful. God bless, M. in Wichita Falls

I am no expert on this at all, but I wanted to tell you about my friend, Sandra. She had RA and it would put her down on the couch or in bed sometimes for days. She was young, in her 30's and a single mom. She was in so much pain and couldn't find anything that helped. This has been at least 20 years ago. Then, she talked to someone who suggested she read "The Yeast Connection". Something about all the yeast we consume in breads, fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. You would be amazed at where yeast is hidden. When she got off of everything the book recommended, she was literally a new person. She had healed herself. I saw it firsthand. It was like a miracle. It's an old book. Perhaps could be found at Half Price Books or Amazon.com. I read it and put it's ideas in place. I never felt better than I did back then. I should do it again! Good luck! B. P.

It is not at all uncommon for an autoimmune condition to be triggered after childbirth. During pregnancy, your immune system "downgrades" its reactions to foreign entities so that you can keep the fetus. After childbirth, the immune system revs up again and sometimes over-revs to the point that it views your own body parts as foreign entities. It depends upon your genes, which body parts/systems are impacted. If you have RA, then you very likely have an HLA DR4 gene.

One other thing you should be tested for is celiac/gluten intolerance. The research keeps pointing to this being the root of many autoimmune conditions. It's an intolerance to wheat gluten, thus your immune system generates antibodies to the gluten - these antibodies are believed to trigger the other autoimmune diseases (it's fairly complex, but has to do with impacting your innate immune response, elevated cytokines/inflammation, increased zonulin, etc.). And the genes for celiac correlate with the RA DR4. You can search in pubmed and find LOTS of medical research on the correlation. And, you can find lots of information on folks whose RA went into remission when they went on a GF diet. Also, nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and green peppers) can aggravate RA.

So, I would strongly recommend you get your doctor to screen you for celiac (You can find lots of medical research as to why this is very common with RA or I'd be happy to send you something you can print out and take to the doctor) or better yet, you can get tested on your own by ordering a test kit from this company: www.enterolab.com

This test is far superior to the blood tests your doctor might run for several reasons:
1) it's more accurate (it's 100% accurate if you have full blown/end stage celiac, but also catches the inbetween stages of gluten intolerance)
2) most doctors don't order the right tests for celiac - it requires 4 CPT codes to get the complete test run with both Quest and Labcorp
3) Few doctors will even consider the possibility of celiac because they aren't trained to look for it. It is the most commonly undiagnosed disorder in this country right now - there are 2+ million people that have it, that don't know it. The average time to diagnosis for most people is over 7 years.
4) In the end, you'll save ALOT of money - the only treatments they have for RA all deal with symptoms and some of the primary meds they've used have caused death (i.e., Vioxx).
5) Per the 7+ years to diagnosis, the sooner you catch this disorder the better off you will be healthwise in the long term.

My husband was diagnosed with RA at the age of 26. He has been living with it now for 5 years. He has done the steroids which were not fun, he did Vioxx for a little while and is still alive. They then finally put him on methotrexate and now have just started him on an injection shot of Humira every 2 weeks. This is a very expensive disease. The drugs are not cheap. I know the methotrexate is a chemotherapy drug that they give to chemo. patience. The Humira he just started taking about 2 mos. ago. Let me just say that it has worked wonders. It is not cheap at all, thank goodness we have good insurance through my company. He has not had a flare up since he started taking the injections. It is a very managable disease. My husband works for United Van LInes, and moves furniture for living while living with RA.
I'm not sure about it being common to get RA after giving birth. Dr.'s have told us that it runs in his family. His brother has scleroderma which is in the RA family, so I think he was just destin to get it. I will say this, he got Bells Palsy right before he was diagnosed, so I think that was a trigger or sign that something worse was to come. Good Luck with everything, my advice to you is find a good dr. to help you treat and manage this, because it can be something miserable if they don't get it managed properly.