Why there is no research about drugs vs diet among the arthritic children. Is it because they are the best silent golden goose in the history of the disease? Methotrexate facilitators pronounce to us a life sentence of pain and deformation and say that diet has no meaning in curing this ailment. What segment of society is more vulnerable to such a threat if not that of little girls and their frightened mothers?… Is being an immigrant even better an opportunity to the health care providers to say that we have no other choice but DNA altering drug?
Lucyna Jacobs / Originally posted on Diet and Rheumatoid Arthritis
Answer
Thank you for sharing your story, Lucyna. Methotrexate is indeed a pretty harsh drug, but as you know better than most, juvenile arthritis can be a pretty harsh disease. Though typically reserved as a second-line treatment for those who don’t respond to less toxic drugs, methotrexate may be prescribed right up front if there is serious multiple joint involvement. In both these cases the benefits are expected to outweigh the risks. The nice thing about healthy dietary interventions is that there are no risks–just benefits–and perhaps particularly in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis patients, who tend to suffer from inadequate nutrition. So it’s not either/or.
Hopefully you can find a physician who respects your family enough to talk to you about improving your daughter’s diet in addition to other medical interventions they have in mind. Three of the first things I would suggest is cutting out dairy (as there is a report in the medical literature of complete remission of the disease “after the elimination of all cow’s milk protein from her diet.”), eliminating meat (see my blog post How Does Meat Cause Inflammation?), and a gluten-free trial, since (rarely) celiac disease can manifest with strictly joint symptoms (but if that doesn’t help I’d add gluten-containing foods back–see Update on Gluten).
Image Credit: Jonf728 / flickr
