YA-A-A-A-ARGH-H-H-H-H!! THE PAIN!! DR: "YEP; ARTHRITIS."

Dear NewHaven - low doses of tylenol may be good for
a fever, or mild discomfort, but does absolutely NADA for
inflammation. All the aspirin like drugs, Motrin, Alleve,
ibuprofen etc etc - are all anti inflammatory drugs that
work to reduce swelling & inflammation - even for as
simple a condition as sunburn...as well as joint injury.
Why I can't take tylenol at all, is because it isn't a safe
or healthy drug for the liver, in anyone who already has
liver problems, like elevated liver enzymes when you
get your blood work done. Just like alcoholics shouldn't
drink due to cirrhosis of the liver - I have to avoid all
medicines that have even potential liver damaging side
effects. And that is a long, long list of medications.
Almost every single one that is used to treat autoimmune
connective tissue diseases like rheumatoid arthritis - all
the new ones like Celebrex & Vioxx and all these new
"wonder" disease modifying drugs - every single one has
the potential to cause liver damage, and my doc says I
can't afford to risk any more liver damage. You can't make
it without a liver, you know - it is extremely necessary for
life to continue. I know of some people who have had liver
transplants, and I hate to even think what that must be like.
Taking 30 to 40 pills a day, just to avoid your body's
immune system rejecting the new liver - is
unbelievable.! Antiinflammatory drugs may
be the cause of why I have liver problems today. During so
many years while I had to keep on working, before the
disease became so severe that I couldn't work once they took
away my anti inflammatory drugs - I literally LIVED on those
meds. I couldn't have gone through one day at work without
my meds. The elevation of liver enzymes just shows that
somehow, somewhere - the liver is being injured. It could be
as simple as my rheumatoid arthritis has gone systemic and
it's attacking organs in addition to just joints, tendons,
muscles and so on. It can happen, though it is unusual except
in the most severe cases.
**AND as Osso mentioned it does run rampant in families.
My maternal great grandmother had it, one daughter has it,
in addition to one of my sisters and one nephew. So far, that's
all that I'm aware of in our family - aside from one of my
elderly aunts who had lupus, but she had the skin type &
recovered wonderfully. My rheumatologist is one of the new
young, information-devouring types, and I adore him. While
the majority of America is still putting RA patients on an anti
cancer drug called methotrexate as the first line of defense,
all the other countries have found that Azulfidine (right - the
medicine usually used in cases of inflammatory bowel disease)
works just as well & with FAR less side effects. Most of the
drug is contained within the digestive tract so there are almost
no side effects to deal with. The rheumatology world still
doesn't see a link with diet & RA but there is massive genetic
link with RA. And almost all patients who are genetically
susceptible have, at some time in their life had some kind of
intestinal infection, it may be a simple stomach virus that sets
you up & makes the disease go from dormant to active.
***OSSO, I haven't a clue about what retinosa pigmentosum
is. Is it a form of autoimmune eye disease? I am aware of
quite a few of them, from iritis to uveitis and more. Has it
affected your vision negatively? In my case, right when I
originally came down with RA, which I believe was at 8 years
old - I also began to rapidly lose my vision at the same time
& within a few years I was wearing glasses as thick as the
bottom of a coke bottle. An opthamologist told my father that
unless I began wearing hard contact lenses, which would stop
the worsening of my vision - I was possibly going to lose my
sight. You can not imagine how uncomfortable it was to get
used to wearing those lenses. You start out wearing them 30
minutes a day and gradually work up to wearing them all the
time and don't even notice it. But it takes over a year worth
of time for that to happen. I am VERY grateful to my dad who
did that for me. I'm sure back in 1962, contact lenses were
expensive. I remember seeing a movie and in it a girl with
glasses got contact lenses, and I thought she was SO lucky!!
Boy, all those months of my eyes tearing all the time while
getting used to the lenses, it was a very good thing that I had
wanted contacts so bad, otherwise I don't know if I could've
gone through with it.

babs<

Good to hear from you here.

Not to be argumentative, but www.arthritis.org says acetamenaphen (Tylenol) is the best over-the-counter medication for arthritis pain. It does not, as you suggest, relieve inflammation, but it's painkilling properties give the patient more flexibility because of lessened pain.

Tylenol does aggravate the liver, but the new Cox-2 inhibitors (Celebrex, Vioxx, Bextra) can cause stomach problems.

Anyone taking any[/b] medication for arthritis needs to have periodic blood tests to see if any damage is being done by the drug.

Well WilliamHenry, that could be because osteoarthritis
and inflammatory arthritis are 2 totally different things.
Osteo is the type that is natural, comes along with the
baggage of getting older, bone spurs, some stiffness in
the morning that usualy wears off as the day goes on,
unless you injure a joint, in which case it needs time to
heal. Osteoarthritis isn't inflammatory arthritis whereas
rheumatoid arthritis, spondylarthritis etc etc are totally
inflammatory diseases of the connective tissue. So
tylenol - helps not at all for inflammation. I'm sure that
there are many and diverse opinions about what is the
best treatment for osteoarthritis but given the high rate
of possible damage to the liver if you overdo it with
tylenol, you need be cautious and judicious in its use.
Don't exceed the warning label maximum daily dosage,
and DO get a complete checkup (as well as a liver panel
bloodwork) as part of your yearly exam. I recently
heard of a new product, it's a patch that's transdermal.
It delivers its medication through the skin to the affected
area. I hear it is expensive, but most people have RX
insurance. It is called Lidoderm & it comes in packs of
30 patches. These are 5% lidocaine patches that transmit
the painkiller THROUGH the skin to the muscles & affected
tissues WITHOUT having to go thru your bloodstream and
throughout your entire body. The beauty of this is that
since it's primarily local, only treating the area that hurts,
it has NO systemic side effects like every oral medication
does. It's hard to beat that for safety - ALL oral meds have
side effects. A friend of mine uses them for back pain,
and claims that it helps tremendously. It may be worth
looking into.

Babs. hi, no, I don't think Retinitis pigmentosa is autoimmune. It is primarily hereditary, although there are different types and perhaps different components. I am exceptionally lucky in that I have an unusually slow case. So slow they haven't been seeing it get worse since it was diagnosed fifteen years ago. So I got my knickers in a twist to no avail, which I am glad enough about. In the meantime, other people are getting older and getting nightblind too, so I am not so all alone in that.

On diet and RA, back in my lab days, the docs specifically scoffed at ideas about tomatoes and arthritis..

but that was a while ago, I would have to revisit data on that to sound sure.

On acidic foods and osteoarthritis, same thing, and again, I don't know about recent data.

Update- For some strange, unfathomable reason, for the last month or so, I stopped taking a lot of the extra vitamins and stuff that I had been taking. I think that I had gotten fed up with taking so many pills. The arthritis in my left hand (I'm a leftie) got so bad that it hurt to write. I even bought a had support brace, which helped when I had it on. When I took it off, the hand hurt again. I was about ready to call my hand specialist.

Last week, I started taking the Glucosamine Chondroitin again. In fact, I took it 2 or three times a day, instead of the once that I originally had been taking. My hand is fine again!!!!

Phoenix<

I am always glad to hear of another success story with glucosamine chondroitin. While not approved by the FDA, it does manage to relieve arthritic symptoms for users across the world.

Wow, Phoenix that is GREAT news - I wish that Glucosamine&
chondroitin did it for me .... would save me bundles of $$$$
As for the tomatoes - Osso - I never have been able to eat
them - unless it's a fried green tomato sandwich, which is
so high in fat grams, it probably uses up 3 days worth.
Prednisone is wonderful for when I have a real severe crisis
and/or it kicks ass when I get those horrible cluster migraine
headaches...to think that I used to sit for HOURS in the ER
waiting and waiting and waiting, till finally seeing an Er Doc,
when all along, all I needed was prednisone - 6 of the 5mg
tablets for 3 days in a row - all gone. I've been very lucky
I haven't had one of those for over a month now.
You're right WH, I've heard MANY osteoarthritis sufferers get
much relief from that combination - obviously is why it sells
so well. I don't take too many vitamins anymore - just extra
B complex - for energy and stimulate appetite - and Vit C
to acidify urine (avoid UTI's), and Calcium, plant estrogens,
and extra folic acid because of one of the Rx meds I'm
taking can cause aplastic anemia without it. But I avoid ALL
the oil soluble ones like A & E & fish oils etc, because they
overload the liver - or they do mine, if taken in any more
than the daily recommended amount. They CAN be toxic
if you take massive doses. I fell on my left knee the other
day - fortunately on the carpet - but right ON my knee.
Within 20 seconds, 2 huge knots came up- I think it was
both of the bursa sacs. Icing it down for a week on & off
has got it almost back to normal. ~ life goes on ~