Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; food which reduces pain or inflamation

Hey guys, so I'm trying to follow no starch diet, but since I didnt manage to remove starch completely from my diet (It's really hard, i love starch, but slowly i want to completely eliminate starch). I'm wondering what are your's favourite foods or suplements, which might SOMEHOW reduce pain and inflamation ?

I have read, that vitamins, cabbage, red whine might help quite a lot. Some guy on the forum swears by tumeric, anyone tried tumeric yet ? What are the other foods/suplements that work for you guys ?

Thanks for all the answers

First I will state that I don't follow the NSD, but am dairy free as that was what came back very positive and I limit my eggs because that came back a little positive and now I'm limiting bread even more because yeast came back positive (I already ate little bread due to the diabetes).

The foods / supplements that I think help me:

Ginger and peppermint (really settles my gastritis)

Vitamin C (boosts my immune system)

LDN (boots my immune system)

Magnesium (really helped my muscle spasms)

Mg/Ca/D/K for bone health

K to prevent my blood vessels from "spontaneous ruptures" as was happening

CoQ for my muscles? (rheumy recommended. then I kept taking since on a statin)

Hyaluronic acid? (rheumy told me it might help my neck and SI joint, a month into taking it, must say my neck and SI joint do feel better, but I might just be in between flares)

I discontinued fish oil because it didn't seem to be helping with the inflammation and it could have been contributing to the spontaneous blood vessel ruptures (my mom had to stop fish oil due to severe nose bleeds that sent her to the ER).

Probiotics:

Pill form
Coconut milk yogurt (since I can't do dairy)
Sauerkraut (don't know if its the fermentation or the fact that its cabbage)

Foods:
to keep my GI tract moving along, I seem to need cruciferous veggies with cabbage being the clear winner but broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower being good too.
when I'm really backed up, prunes and fiber one bars seem to work

and when all else fails, psyllium

It does seem for me that when the gut is healthy, so is the rest of me
and when the gut is unhealthy, then so too follows the rest of me.

Hey there,

In all my trials I really did not find any foods that immediately "reduced" pain/inflammation much like you expect from a pill other than ginger if that is what you are after. However... if taking NSAID I would avoid ginger as is basically the same IMO... I could get bloody noses from too much ginger as it is also blood thinner just like an NSAID.

My suggestions are for long term maintenance to keep inflammation at reduced levels... of course if I would personally avoid all starch, but if you need some this is how I would attack it:

Foods I would avoid (outside of NSD):
- Wheat (because of gluten), very hard to digest
- Processed foods - I do not trust additives and worked (as accountant) in processed foods plant and from recipes I had to assign costs to, I saw what snuck into products
- Soda / pop
- Sugar, foods with sugar added and most sugar substitutes
- Alcohol in moderation (because I believe in leaky gut)

If I had to choose to keep some starch in.. would limit to easily digested starches. However... if I ate even this every day I would not think diet worked for me and would have to continue with some form of medication.

Foods that I would look to add for long term "maintenance":
- Foods with healthy oil (omega oils).. walnuts, smart fish choices, flax seed (or supplements of the same)
- Foods with probiotics.... yogurt, sauerkraut, kefir
- green veggies
- I liked cherries as well and all natural cherry juice, personally think there was some minimal help with eating them.

Ginger is only thing that I saw very direct relation to consumption and "immediate" pain reduction... personally I think when talking about all other food choices, it is long term "maintenance" plan to keep pain levels down.

Hope that helps with what you are looking for. I had never tried tumeric... but think it may be similar to ginger in my descriptions... so if taking NSAID may want to be careful.

Tim

WELCOME, JakeTyler:

It is very difficult to get into remission unless all forms of starch are eliminated--even that contained within little pills. NSAIDs are too damaging to expect enough starch tolerance very soon.

Some important vitamins and minerals: vitD, vitC, vitE, niacin and niacinamide, and lysine. Chelated copper and zinc along with calcium and magnesium.

There are some things that can help us eliminate NSAID usage, followed by other things that will help, in order: 2g effective GLA from borage, evening primrose, or black currant just before retiring. EFAs during the day especially EVOliveOil by the teaspoonful. 4-6oz fresh wheatgrass juice on empty stomach. Salmon, lychee fruit, okra, and bitter melon. 2g proper probiotic yoghurt like Stonyfield Farms or Brown Cow. Garlic and fresh fenugreek are good.

Avoid all fried foods and especially anything turned into a flour, paste, colloid. Eliminate caramel, all breading, too much soft cheeses (fresh; non-aged), and avoid citrus pulp. TEST everything with iodine, especially fruits (mangoes, nectarines, apricots, etc). Avoid peanuts and especially cashews.

Fast at least four days to cleanse and eliminate flares and reorient diet consciousness.

HEALTH,
John

Hi I was dxd with RA, but have terrible si joint pain and signs of fusing on xray, and the thing that helped me most was avoiding grains , sugar and dairy. I can eat meat that is not highly processed, but I do better when I eat it just twice a week. The fruits and veggies really have made a difference, my labs have come down like crazy. I used to have HORRIBLE labs, low blood markers for anemia, like hemoglobin, high inflammation markers and now all of them are in normal range and the last one is almost in normal range. A crp from 360 to 109 and a sed rate from 65 t0 28 all with a change in diet. My frozen joints now move, but it took patience and I did not give up, and when I cheated and ate a bunch of junk, I just started all over and kept going. Just keep doing the no starch diet and you will notice an improvement in a few weeks. Take care.

Thanks for that post! Inspiring

Hopefully will help others (sure it will) to stay the course

And happy for you as well

Thank you guys a lot, I really appreciate the advice from you I have some questions though.

1)


Do you mean foods with added sugar or sugar in general ? What I'm trying to implement now is to have most of my carbs coming from fruits (fructose, sugar) and veggies, which seem to be working, although I'm still not sure what veggies I should avoid (except for potatoes).


What are the examples of easily digested starches ? Starches found in veggetable and fruits ?

What do you guys think about this article ? I'm considering buying boswellia and see if it reduces pain and inflammination.

http://community.omtimes.com/profiles/blogs/healing-ankylosing-spondylitis-naturally-with-herbs

2)
I have also seen a video of a woman talking about how she healed her AS & other 2 autoimunne diseases by going "just" gluten-free diet. Did any of you got into remission by "only" eliminating gluten-free but still got away with gluten-free (but starch rich) foods like potatoes or legumes ?

3)
What is your opinion on intermittent fasting (IF) in relation with AS ? I'm talking about the 16/8 version, where you dont eat anything for 16 hours (except for coffee or sugar free gum, basically just drink water) and then have 8 hour window, where you can eat your food. I have heard it may have positive effect on AS, but would like to hear from someone, who tried such style of dieting

4)
I have also seen that some people went completely starch-free for some time and then slowly reintroduced starch into their diet => they were able to eat starch in moderate ammount without any flares. Do you think that it is POSSIBLE to have some starch in your diet (for example 100g sweet potatoes a day) without causing inflammination ? I'm quite confused, because some people who were on paleo diet reintroduced starch for example after 1 year and had some MAJOR flares, while some people reintroduced starch and were able to tolarate decent amount of starch without trouble

Hi Jake, I follow intermittent fasting (IF) on the 16/8 window every day (16 hours fasting, 8 hours eating windows) and have been doing so for around 5 months I guess. I'm doing it for a whole host of reasons including gut healing, autophagy, fat burning (now that I've added clean starches back into my diet), convenience, body composition and overall feelings of well being. I try to do things that make me feel good and using IF in combination with weight training for strength makes me feel really good.

I love it. And I will probably never stop doing it until the day I die. Its just such a time saver not having to cook breakfast every morning. I get up in the morning, drink a couple of cups of water, have my shower etc, brew a nice black coffee with a pinch of iodized salt in it (I use a coffee Syphon device which I found nice for brewing black coffee - more flavors going on than espresso), put it in travel cup and commute to work enjoying my coffee relaxing.

At around 10am, I have another black coffee. I try to get most of my work done in the morning until 1pm when I am mentally alert (helped by the fasting and coffee) and slow things down in the afternoon after eating a decent lunch. Drink lots of water all day.

That routine really works for me. I would not eat sugar free gum. I would think that chewing gum is stimulating digestion signals to the gut and giving it nothing to digest. I don't put fats, sugars, milk or anything other than a pinch of salt in my coffee. I want 0 calories during the morning to prolong autophagy. Some people will put fats (butter, coconut oil, MCT oil etc) in their coffee which is ok if their goal is to remain in a ketogenic state, but I want the benefits of autophagy as well which requires 0 calories I believe.

A couple of tips to consider depending on what you are going for.......(weight loss, weight gain, or just maintenance)

The trick is to make sure you eat the normal amount of calories you would normally consume in a day, in the 8 hour eating window and you are not constantly eating under your bodies "maintenance" levels of calories. Unless you are doing it short term - 4 weeks max say - for weight loss. If you eat under, you will lose weight rapidly and prolonged under eating is not advised.

For me my daily maintenance levels of calories for my height, weight and age is around 2000 calories. Eating just meat, fats and non starchy vegetables, I found to be quite a task in an 8 hour window as fats and proteins are very satiating and you need to eat big meals in an 8 hour window. Keeping an eye on calories using something like Myfitnesspal.com (at least for the first month) is recommended to get an idea of actual total calorie content. It can be surprising.

Protein shakes made with full fat coconut cream certainly help boost calories if needed on a no starch diet. And so does drinking tablespoons of Olive oil or Coconut oil which I found myself doing on some days.

For the last 2-3 months however I have been seriously trying to add weight and muscle .....So I have to eat somewhere around 2600-3000 calories per day. This is really really difficult if not impossible for me eating just protein, fats and non starchy veges. I felt downright uncomfortable. Its just too rich in this volume. This is where fast digesting carbs from Potatoes and white rice come back in for me and I'm delighted I can tolerate them now. The 3 times a week I workout, I really boost up the carbs especially post workout where I will eat half a kg (500 grams) of potato's with meat.

Other days I will focus more on fats and proteins with less carbs although I still try to get at least 1 meal with a smaller amount of potatoes or rice per day now to feed gut bacteria. So far I've put on 10 kgs and back up to my pre no starch diet weight and have made significant strength gains all of which makes me feel great. Something else I have found is that moderate levels of inflammation you might carry before a workout, seem to disappear after a decent heavy lifting session.

In another couple of months, I'm going to trim some fat off (there's not that much anyhow) and that's going to be easy since I find it actually difficult to eat what I'm eating now in an 8 hour window. If I'm not careful about how much I eat, I can drop a kg in the space of a week quite easily.

As far as AS goes, I'm sure IF helps me but there are so many variables and its hard to quantify in real numbers. But I go by how I feel and lately I've been feeling pretty good which is a sign inflammation is under control. When my inflammation levels go up, my mood generally deteriorates commensurate with the level of inflammation and if I let it go too far....I can end up feeling really "doom and gloom".

Give it a go, see if it works for you. Its actually quite easy to skip breakfast I find.......harder to eat the right amount of calories in the 8 hour window, but if you like stuffing your face....you will enjoy that part

hey dlee, thanks for writting down your very interesting experience with IF I will probably give it a try. It certainly won't hurt me, so why not try something new But I'm sure it will be quite hard to follow in the beggining.

I'm also very passionate about weightlifting and I can confirm, that it makes me feel much better in all aspects of life. That's also why i was asking about reintroducing starches to my diet, because it's the best way to fill up your muscle glykogen levels. Now I'm using fruit to do it almost exclusively (not nearly as good, but hey, health is more important). I will probably stick to NSD for 2 weeks or something and then slowly add like 30g of potatoes and see what it does and then remove it if I get flares again.

As for bulking (more calories than maintenence level) I would recommend you to eat eggs (basically the best super food according to many bodybuilders) and start using fruits more. I get a lot of calories from wallnuts as well, they have quite a lot of calories and are considered to be healthy as well. But I found out lately that peanut butter is a NO food for us ASers, so i cannot recommend you this one, although its perfect way to increase calories for healthy people

I'm currently on high protein (1,5g per pound of weight), moderate fat (wallnuts, oils, cheese) and low - moderate carbs (fruits, veggies, fruits taken mostly near the workout time) and have some great results with fat loss/muscle gain even on maintenence levels !

I recently found out, that my whey protein might contain gluten, so I'm considering removing it from my diet.

I'm now on my mission to buy an iodine indicator, but it seems to me, that there are not many options in Czech Republic. Is "Lugol's iodine" the indicator you guys are using to test your food for starch content ?