Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; AMAZING INFORMATION

I think, since I actually have the disease, I will just continue to challenge the people getting paid to come onto our website (and others) and writing up these little advertisements for their products under the guise of it supposedly being good for me when it's very harmful.

Hi Linda,
Sorry about my lack of understanding, but you said...

Quote:

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Eating inflammatory and anti-inflammatory foods in the recommended combination really broadens my food choices and I feel better than ever.

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If this is a diet about being inflammation free, why would you eat both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory foods?

I can clearly see for myself that food is either inflammatory, non-inflammatory, or anti-inflammatory, or has some other type positive or negative influence on our health. In fact I am having some pretty good results using holistic alternatives, and watching what I eat. Yes, this also includes me eliminating the worst of the starchies and/or over-processed foods. Nothing amazing or phenomenal though, just me feeling some noticeable relief.

Either way you did it, I'm glad your feeling better.
Thanks for sharing,
Take care,
James.

Thanks again Wind rider!

Shall read the book with caution when it arrives.

I have four children age 19 -24 with two in particular who have displayed early AS signs to varying degrees but are not at a point they want to change thier diet dramatically, although one has now gone gluten free, so maybe there will something in it for them.

Andrea

Windrider, I assure you I was not paid to come onto your website. Beginning in 2003 I was a frequent visitor to kickas. As I mentioned in my post I was introduced to the diet and OPCxtra by one of my patients who actually had polymyalgia rheumatica. She developed diabetes when another provider put her on prednisone. In an effort to control her pain and douse the diabetes I trialed a no starch diet which she faithfully followed and, indeed, we were able to dramatically cut her pred dose. Then she took a 3 week trip to Hawaii and the diet went by the wayside. During this time one of her daughter's, who is a grant writer, immersed herself in research on anti-inflammatory diets and found "The Inflammation Free Diet Plan". This daughter has lots of aches and pains and fibromyalgia and tried the diet and had wonderful results. Coincidentally?, one of my patient's sons suffers from disabling AS. Another of my patient's daughters is an internist who, like her sister, had lots of aches and pains and fibromyalgia. The internist had been taking OPCxtra and really felt it benefited her and called me asking if it would be alright for her mom to try it. Well, after a few weeks on this diet and OPCxtra my 83 year old patient is nearly skipping and telling me how great she feels and her sed rate has plummeted from 94 to 9. Guess what, I can't start my experiment quick enough. I've done fairly well if I was really, really strict on NSD but still would take a celebrex once or twice a week. This is far better than I was doing pre-NSD when I took Celebrex 200 mg two times a day and still had lots of breakthrough panuveitis. Since starting the new diet regimen and taking the OPCxtra I've taken no anti-inflammatories and have eaten a much broader diet. I guess I look back to where I was in 2003 and every bit of evidence I had told me the food pyramid was the only way to go. I decided to experiment on the NSD and was amazed (there is that word again!) with the results. After hearing the testimonial from my patient and her daughters and reading "The Inflammation Free Diet Plan" I thought to myself, "Linda, you haven't gotten where you are now by being close-minded" so I decided to give it a shot and I'm glad I did.

Again, Windrider, I have no affiliation with the author or OPCxtra. I'm just a Family Nurse Practitioner tucked away in the Central Idaho Mountains who wanted to share her experience...

Linda

Some people just don't get it.

The supplement is bogus and mislabeled as to content. The diet is commercial.

Wind Rider, if you read the book you would realize there is nothing commercial about the diet...
Linda

Hi, James:

If I am not mistaken, the concept is that foods are assigned points and the combination of points becomes the overall risk, so perhaps one inflammatory food might be counter-balanced by an anti-inflammatory food, and the combination would result in lower-risk.

As for the rest--

The diet might work for many people, and since it has worked well for Linda, who has been on NSD for quite some time, there could be a good explanation that satisfies the mechanism of AS--such as enough intestinal healing so that even foods not NSD compatible might not provoke a flare at this stage.

The problem I see with this plan is that we are always walking a very fine line and that line is between iritis and no iritis (for me...or it could be knee edema, TMJ, or other lesser AS phenomena) and starting up certain starches again could be dangerous, long-term. I am glad Linda has found relief and continues to enjoy relief while expanding her eating options--that is the goal of the strict diet--STRICT at first for enough healing that we hope everyone can eventually eat whatever they want. We just don't encourage people to stray too far from the diet while they are still having symptoms.

I tried staying vegetarian for the first year of NSD. I now know this can't really work for most people, but there is a book by another fellow spondy who controlled her AS using a food combining method: Jackie LeTissier's "Food Combining for Vegetarians." There is little doubt that Dr. Wm Hay had great results using food combining techniques to control chronic disease, and LeTissier's book is instructive more than informative but nice to know that starches have again been independently verified to play a role in AS.

My advice to anyone is to be careful with such a regimen. Certainly some foods are very highly anti-inflammatory, like salmon or tuna, but eating a tuna fish sandwich might provide some of the cure, but at the cost of taking some of the cause and who knows exactly when that pound of cure will be worth far less than the ounce of prevention?

We appreciate Linda's experiences, and know that she does not make her claims lightly or for any monetary gain, but I keep my experimentation to a minimum and certainly agree with most of what Wind Rider has said.

Regards to all,
John
(still in Philippines)

Thanks for the post Linda, very interesting information. I believe I came across this book in the past when I did much more reading regarding health and nuitrition.

Let us know how it turns out long term, as of now... I am inclined to 2nd John's comments that knowing you have been NSD for quite a few years, that quite a bit of healing has taken place with the GI. Hopefully future success will continue.

Best to you,

Tim

Hi Tim,

I suppose the theory that my gi tract has healed secondary to the NSD is a possibility, however, up until I started this diet and the OPCxtra I continued to have pain and pre-uveitis type symptoms and was taking a celebrex or two every week. Another possibility is that the grape seed extract, which is purported to have antibacterial effects, is killing the Kp. In the past when I have taken antibiotics for other reasons, i.e., occasional sinusitis, I have noted immediate improvement in my AS symptoms.

I must admit that altho I bought into the Kp and molecular mimicry thought back in 2003, I'm more skeptical at this point. As a provider I have shared the NSD with all my patients with arthropathies and fibromyalgias. It helps everyone who follows the diet. I've tested most of these folks for HLA-B27 and only a few have turned up positive. I know this sounds like heresy but I now really wonder if the NSD is more "hunter/gatherer", nutritionally dense, and, therefore, what we should ALL be eating for optimal wellness?!

Later,

Linda