Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Arthritis Question For The Medical Folks

Amen !

Surprised that a naturopathic doc would prescribe prednisone. Mellitin may be a better choice if you are not allergic to bee stings. Since you keep bees, you have steady supply.
We keep bees primarily so that a family member can sting herself 3-5 times a week when the bees are out and about. During the winter, in our part of the country, the bees are quiescent. During this time, lemon grass oil rubbed directly on the inflamed joint daily has been almost as effective as bee stings. Smells good too.

Got started after a single 100 dollar visit with a well known apitherapist who is also a MD. He taught her how to sting herself after determining that she was not allergic to bee sting. A prescription for an Epipen was also provided.

The expensive part was getting started with bee keeping but you got that part covered already.

Scott, I've got severe degenerative arthritis in both knees, in my feet, hips and hands. Nothing (prescription or over-the-counter) seems to help. I'm 70 and need knee replacement, but they only last about 20 years (due to the supporting bone splintering). My family history suggests that I might live to over 100, so I've got to wait another 10 years (according to the rheumatologist and orthopedic surgeon.

I wake yp at night with bad pain in the knees , feet and hands. Best thing I've found is to move the joints.

Only thing that has helped is celebrex. I take it 2 to 3 times a week. More if backpacking , skiing in the mountains, stacking hay, cutting wood etc. Plus take fish oil Vit C and a baby aspirin.

Still hurts a little but am able to sleep. have tried aleve and motrin but long term usage really tears up my stomach.

Prednisone is a miracle for reducing pain but negatives are too severe for me to consider.

Drinking plenty of water and movement every day helps.

By what you've written I presume that you do not suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. Therefore what your brother in law has prescribed is a pretty common treatment for many inflammatory difficulties and it tends to work well. It's worked for me from time to time when needed.

Sure, prednisone is a steroid but at these doses and for the comparitivley short period of time to run the course you'll not have to worry about side effects which can be pretty terrible with long term use. I'd go for it were I you; especially since you live in damp western WA.

All the time at work I get patients coming in for ankle, knee, hip, lumbar, shoulder, and cervical joint or disc replacements. Sometimes the primary diagnosis is a trauma of some sort, but 90% of the time the primary is osteoarthritis, degenetative joint disease, or endstage arthropathy. All these fancy terms boil down to is a joint that's worn out.

It's not difficult to imagine how this occurs, and the best course of action to prevent this problem is to keep ones weight down where is should be and to not try to lift 14" gluelams into place by yourself. Your body is not unlike your truck; the more you beat it the faster it'll wear out.

After my back injury shortened me I am 6' 1" and now weigh in at around 190. I maintain a reduced carb diet that keeps me going without thickening me for several reasons. First, I understand that every pound on my belly increases back pain. Secondly, my wife is diabetic and this diet keeps her blood sugar under 100 without any medication. I wear 34" waste jeans and that is with a full sized 1911 tucked in a Milt Sparks Versi-Max II IWB holster. I do not think weight is the aggravating problem but I am still working on strengthening stomach mussel and reducing fat.

Forgot. This is very important.

Good on ya and congratulations on taking an active part in your own health maintainence. Too many times I see someone coming in whining about the fact that this is their second knee replacement in 5 years and we don't know what we're doing. Universally these folks are a foot shorter that I am and have me by 150 lbs. or so and it's very difficult for me not to point this out in an effective fashion.

Hope your meds are working.

Of course. That's standard treatment for just about any inflammation issue, but it's only a temporary, short term, solution. You can't go through that course more than a few times a year without serious side effects.

Have you tried a strict elimination of high starch foods from your diet (like potatoes, bread, noodles, rice, grains or grain products of any sort), along with a sharp reduction in sugar usage? Doing so constitutes an anti-inflammatory diet, and is associated with a dramatic easing of osteoarthritis symptoms. I know you're already on board with a reduction in those sorts of foods, but have you tried strictly eliminating them just to see if it helps?

Mine isn't an everyday occurrence but comes and goes with sometimes months between episodes. When it does flare up the single most helpful thing for me has been to force myself to slowly get the affected joint moving along with a double dose of buffered aspirin.

Years ago (early 70's) a former coworker's wife had severe crippling arthritis and at that time the steroids she was prescribed was the only thing that gave her much relief. He told me that although the medicine she was taking helped her arthritis considerably, it was also damaging her eyes and probably would eventually cause her to go blind unless they could find something else that worked as well. Such a shame, too, because she was a stunningly beautiful woman, just in her late 20's at that time and already wore glasses that looked to be approaching 1/4" thick.

I'll put my flame suit on, but I'd recommend researching honey and cinnamon as a treatment for arthritis. I know several people who have tried it and swear by it. A doctor told me that cinnamon is an anti-inflammatory, so there's probably a chemical basis for it's use.

Hawk, We are on the Glycemic Load diet. I drink almost no sodas, maybe one a month and that is keep the rum happy. Sugar is about the same. I may put a little dark brown sugar the muselix my wife makes but that may be a once a week or less thing too.

It would be extremely difficult to reduce my carb load any more.

It's not so much the carbs as the form the carbs take. Carbs that quickly break down into blood sugar are what to avoid. Carbs found is such foods as zucchini or broccoli are just fine, as they are low density carbs, and tend to remain compartmentalized until after a gradual breakdown process during digestion.

Muselix....Glycemic Load Diet? Methinks you REALLY REALLY need to read some of Dr. Barry Sear's books. If you gave me permission to clean out your cupboards, I'd probably trash two thirds of what you eat.

Healthy breakfast? 1/3 cup of egg beaters with a whole egg scrambled. Half of an apple with some natural peanut butter. NOT muselix.

I've had that problem off an on since high school. Can't take pills. Four things work for me. Listed in increasing order of expense: put away the chisels, gouges and scrapers and warm your hands. Put on some Aspercream. Have a scotch and water before bed. Talk with your doctor about Voltaren Gel. Rx only but very effective for me since it came out several years ago.

One of the medical news letters recommends turmeric as a safe alternative. 1200-1500 Mg. daily? Says the curcumin helps with irritation. I prefer to use food rather than drugs but have used them all (meds). So far nothing really works long term but the turmeric works as well as most nsaids.

for the record herbs and spices = drugs......anything that causes some sort of change is a drug and just cause its natural does not make it safer.....one of the most popular heart medications came from a flower common in gardens.....you handle cyanide every time you stop and pickup fruit in the produce isle....some of the most toxic non-radioactive poisons known to man come from plants...and keep in mind most peoples spice racks contain a hallucinogen if taken in a big enough dose....

dont get me wrong im all for herbal supplements, i take some myself to boost my immune system, but there is a mindset out there that just cause its natural and not man made its safer.......that could not be farther from the truth....plus some plants contain chemicals that can interact with medications your already on so if your on meds prolly best to ask your doc about it......some of the herbal pills to help yah sleep are main culprits for this....

Wife makes a cold cereal with nuts and some dried fruit and I tiny bit of raw oats. Our goal to to keep below 250 g a day and we seldom get close. As for instance, he blood sugar was 88 this morning and that was after a day spent watching superbowl with friends at the bar of a local casino. A year ago she was told she would have to be on medication for life. she has yet to take the first pill.

We live on a farm. Much of what we eat we grow and we grow everything organically. Breakfast will consist of two fresh fertile eggs from free range chickens that were laid yesterday. they will be scrambled with kale, onions and such grown here on the farm and harvested this morning. There will not be anything preprocessed and boxed to sit in a warehouse for months.

Again, I am down to 6' 1" after my accident. I wear a 34 wast jean and that is with a full sized 1911 carried IWB. I am a long way from being obese. I try to stay active. I just finished five weeks of taking down heavy equipment, bulldozers, excavators, front end loaders and such and putting them in containers. I have been pulling wrenches up to 2". I live and work a farm where most of the work is done by hand. I heat and cook with wood and that means I am cutting, splitting and stacking wood for our cabin and my daughters house. In my book that is pretty active for someone looking at 63 in May.