Rheumatism Rheumatism Symptoms | Causes | Remedy | Diet | More Rheumatism Treatments | FAQ's The word rheumatism is derived from the Greek word 'rheuma', which means a swelling. It refers to an acute or chronic illness which is characterized by pain and swelling of the muscles, ligaments and tendons, or the joints. The medical terminology for rheumatism arthritis is rheumatoid arthritis. Your doctor may refer to your condition as such. Rheumatism arthritis is a chronic and painful disorder which can attack the joints on your arms and legs leaving them inflamed and swollen. Although rheumatism symptoms may often resemble those of another condition called osteoarthritis, one can spot a few differences between them. In rheumatism arthritis, the lining in the joints is inflamed while in osteoarthritis the painful condition is due to wear and tear of joints and ligaments. Left untreated, rheumatism arthritis would ultimately result in denuded bones and permanently distorted joints. Osteoarthritis, on the other hand, is a painful condition but may not cause any permanent damage. Palindromic Rheumatism The older rheumatism definition included any pain in the muscles, joints, tendons and bones. This was then corrected due to advancement in modern medicine where any specific pain in the joints is defined as rheumatoid arthritis. Another painful condition that may often be mistaken for rheumatism arthritis is Palindromic rheumatism or PR. Referred to as the Hench-Rosenberg syndrome after the two medical experts who suggested the medical term, this painful joint condition seems to recur over a period of time. In fact, the linguistic term palindrome applies to words like Mom, Dad, gag, and so on, which mean the same if you read them in either direction. In this case, it signifies a back and forth reaction. Palindromic rheumatism describes the back and forth pain of this condition. Palindromic rheumatism may also seem like a ‘moving’ condition. It may affect several different joints at once or may recur in different joints over a period giving the impression that the pain is moving through the various joints. The biggest difference between Palindromic rheumatism and rheumatism arthritis is that the former does not cause any permanent joint damage and may also occur in soft tissues away from the joints. It is very difficult to predict and diagnose Palindromic rheumatism since the swelling and pain may last for a few hours or a few days and then subside. Between Palindromic rheumatism attacks, there is no trace at all of swelling and inflammation. Many individuals who suffer from Palindromic rheumatism may go on to develop rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis of the bones. Hence, a wrong diagnosis may occur in the case of different types of arthritis. Rheumatism Arthritis Treatment While there is no cure for rheumatism arthritis, medical experts are now certain that individuals may be genetically pre-disposed to the condition. Despite medical solutions, individuals may want to adopt physical therapy and alternate treatments for rheumatism arthritis. • Your doctor might recommend a visit to a physical therapist. A few simple exercises prescribed by the therapist may help joint flexibility. In case of pain or discomfort of the joints, your therapist may help you come up with solutions or ideas to perform everyday activities without putting too much pressure or stress on your inflamed joints. • The physical therapist may also introduce you to assisting devices which can help you grip objects better. A walking stick could mean less pressure on the knees and ankles to support your weight. Your doctor and therapist may also recommend moderate intensity exercises like swimming, water aerobics, walking, and so on to lose weight, in case you are overweight. Obesity in patients with rheumatism arthritis can complicate or worsen the condition. • Oral medication may include anti-inflammatory drugs and cortisone induced steroids to slow the process of joint damage and reduce chronic pain and immunosuppressant drugs to control the function of the immune system and its response to the joints. However, all these medications have moderate to severe side effects. All medication must follow prescription and strict supervision of your doctor. • Severely damaged joints may require corrective surgery. • A few self-care tips such could be followed to keep the pain at bay. One should avoid cigarettes which are known to increase pain in rheumatism arthritis patients. Besides this, exercising daily, and finding ways to relax and de-stress your body can help slow down the onslaught of rheumatoid arthritis and keep the pain under control. • A warm or cold compress would help relieve the pain in case of a rheumatism arthritis attack. Warm compresses or a hot water shower may relieve the pain in the arm and leg joints. On the other hand, some individuals find that cold compresses numb the painful flare-ups and decrease the spasms. While the debilitating pain of rheumatism arthritis may seem to interfere with your everyday activities, do try to control your physical life. Make time for regular exercise; but also ensure that you let your body rest. Rheumatism arthritis could cause muscle weakness and fatigue. Participate in your local support groups or arthritis chapter or connect with individuals suffering from the same conditions on national arthritis communities online. They will keep you updated on any new treatment, therapy, or prevention tips that might help. Rheumatism arthritis should not put a stop or limit your everyday lifestyle. With proper care and prevention, you can prolong the health of your joints and take control of the pain. Rheumatism Symptoms Fever, Pain, Intense Soreness and Stiffness The onset of the acute variety of rheumatism is characterized by fever, intense soreness, and pain. In the acute muscular type, the area becomes so sensitive that even the weight of bed clothing aggravates the pain. It may settle into a chronic state under a wrong mode of treatment. If the disease is not treated properly in the acute stage, it may become chronic. The symptoms of chronic muscular rheumatism are pain and stiffness of the affected muscles. In the case of chronic articular rheumatism (pain in the joints), pain and stiffness are felt in one or more joints of the body, with swelling in most cases. While there is no definite cure for rheumatism arthritis, early diagnosis of rheumatism symptoms could help individuals to stop permanent damage. This could be done with the help of oral medication, physical therapy and in severe cases, surgery. All this would help to correct joint posture. Rheumatism arthritis is a result of the body’s autoimmune malfunction. Because of this malfunction, the body attacks the synovium or synovial fluid, the gel-like lining on the soft tissue that surrounds and protects your joints, leaving it inflamed. The inflammation thickens the synovium, which may push against the joints causing misalignment or misshapen joints. Studies show that a greater percentage of women than men are likely to suffer from rheumatism arthritis. Demographics suggest that individuals in the age group of 40 to 60 years are more likely to experience pain due to rheumatism arthritis. • Early rheumatism symptoms may include persistent pain in the joints along with swelling. • Apart from pain and swelling, if your joints are tender to the touch, you may suffer from rheumatism arthritis. • Individuals suffering from rheumatism arthritis may also experience persistent fevers and chills. • Fever may be accompanied by a feeling of fatigue. • Swollen hands that are burning red and hot to the touch are another indication of rheumatism arthritis. • Individuals suffering from rheumatism arthritis may find prolongated symptoms of morning soreness in their limbs. • Some individuals may also notice a nodule like growth underneath the skin on their arms. • Rapid weight loss is also a common symptom of rheumatoid arthritis. Many of the above symptoms are also common to other bone or joint conditions such as osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and arthritis. Therefore, it is important to consult your doctor if you identify any of these rheumatism arthritis symptoms and get a proper diagnosis of the condition. Rheumatism Causes Rheumatism Symptoms, Causes, Remedy and Diet Toxic waste products in the blood The chief cause of rheumatism is the presence of toxic waste products in the blood. The liberal consumption of meat, white bread, sugar, and refined cereals leaves a large residue of toxic wastes in the system. When the vitality is low, the toxic wastes are concentrated around the joints and bony structure, where they form the basis of rheumatism Infection of teeth, tonsils and gall-bladder In certain cases, infection from the teeth, tonsils, and gall-bladder may produce rheumatism. The disease is aggravated by exposure to cold water Home Remedies for Rheumatism Rheumatism home remedies and natural cures, Questions and answers Rheumatism treatment using Potato Juice The juice of raw potato is regarded as an excellent remedy fur rheumatism. One or two teaspoons of the juice, taken out by pressing mashed raw potatoes, should be taken before meals. This will help to eliminate the toxic condition and relieve rheumatism. The skin of the potato is also an excellent remedy fur rheumatism. The skin is exceptionally rich in vital mineral salts, and the water in which the peelings are boiled is one of the best medicines for ailments caused by excess toxic matter in the system. Approximately thirty grams of the potato peelings should be thoroughly washed and boiled in half a litre of water till it is reduced to half. The decoction should then be strained and a glass of the same should be taken three or four times daily Rheumatism treatment using Bitter Gourd Bitter gourd is considered beneficial in the treatment of rheumatism. A cup of juice, extracted from the vegetable, should be mixed with a teaspoon of honey, and taken daily for treating this condition. This treatment should be continued for at least three months to provide relief Rheumatism treatment using Celery Celery is another effective remedy for rheumatism. A fluid extract of the seeds is more powerful than the raw vegetable. This also has a tonic action on the stomach and kidneys. Five to ten drops of this fluid should be taken in hot water before meals. Powdered seeds can be used as a condiment Rheumatism treatment using Lemon Lemons are beneficial in the treatment of rheumatism. The patient should take the juice of two or three lemons each day. This will bring good results Rheumatism treatment using Walnuts Walnuts are valuable in rheumatism. They should, however, be thoroughly masticated to achieve beneficial results. Half a dozen can be taken daily in the treatment of this condition Rheumatism treatment using Rhubarb The herb rhubarb has been found valuable in rheumatism. The green stalks of this herb should be pounded with an equal quantity of sugar. A teaspoonful should be taken three or four times a day. This remedy seldom fails Rheumatism Diet Rheumatism : Home Remedies suggested by users Orange juice and water In the case of acute rheumatism, the patient should be put on a short fast of orange juice and water for three or four days. After the juice fast, the patient should be placed on a restricted diet for fourteen days. In this regimen, orange or grapefruit may be taken for breakfast; lunch may consist of raw salad of seasonal vegetables with raisins, prunes, figs, or dates; and dinner may comprise of one or two steamed vegetables Well-balanced diet Thereafter, the patient may gradually adopt a well-balanced diet consisting of seeds, nuts, grains, vegetables, and fruits. In case of chronic rheumatism, the patient may be placed on an all-fruit diet for four or five days. He may, thereafter, gradually adopt a well-balanced diet. The patient should take ripe fruits, fresh vegetables, and buttermilk in abundance Avoid meat, indigestible and highly-seasoned foods He should avoid all meat and fish; white bread, sugar, and refined cereals; rich, indigestible and highly-seasoned foods; tea and coffee; alcohol; sauces, pickles, and condiments Other Rheumatism Treatment Warm-water enema In the case of acute rheumatism, the bowels should be cleansed daily with a warm-water enema during the first three or four days of the juice fast Apply heat and hot packs to the affected parts Other helpful methods in the treatment of rheumatism are application of heat and hot packs to the affected parts, a hot tub bath, a cabinet steam bath, dry friction, and a sponge bath Hot Epsom salts bath Hot Epsom salts baths are also beneficial and should be taken twice a week for three months in case of chronic rheumatism and once weekly thereafter. The affected parts should also be bathed twice daily in hot water containing Epsom salts, after which some olive oil should be applied Fresh air exposure and light outdoor exercises Fresh air, deep breathing, and light outdoor exercises are also beneficial Avoid dampness and cold Dampness and cold should be avoided http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/remedy/Rheumatism.html RHEUMATISM AND ARTHRITIS In our clinic, we have a great many rheumatism and arthritis patients, and it is not really surprising. It is one of the problems we can expect as a result of our eating patterns, our civilized food, and the stress we live under. All arthritic conditions are different, but ninety per cent of the causative factors are chronic resentment, career problems, frustrations, worry, fear, unhappy marriage, imbalanced metabolism, inherited abnormal chemistry of the metabolism, self-limiting diseases (like measles, mumps and chicken pox), traumas and diet. Of these, the main cause is dietary. Diet is where it all starts. You cannot argue with that because it's basic. You cannot build good health on a bad diet. I have travelled around the world to find out why primitive societies, the so-called uncivilized people, do not suffer from certain illnesses. And there was one particular group that interested me very much. They had no arthritis, rheumatism, kidney problems or any of the degenerative diseases, and they lived in a perpetually humid climate. They had no salt intake and they ate daily a vegetable like the potato, called "Devil's Claw", which has in it every mineral salt necessary for good health. So really, our eating habits have to change. Many problems, like rheumatism, arthritis, duodenal ulcers, psoriasis and eczema, are born in an overly acidic system. Now, the whole mystery of arthritis and rheumatism is as follows: calcium enters into a solution in an acid medium, and the agent which helps this is potassium. Most arthritic cases are very, very low in potassium. So you can see why diet is so important to keep the potassium at the right level. Your richest sources of potassium are: potatoes, bananas, dates, figs, molasses, cider vinegar, apricots, raisins, and the best source is just the normal potato. I have a very simple cure which I recommend highly. Every morning, get a big potato, wash it well, and then grate it, and with a spoon, push the juice out of it. You just get a little, that's all, but you're wide awake for the whole day. And you drink that the very first thing in the morning, and you have your finest source of potassium, and it filters the acids out of your system beautifully. It's a wonderful thing - only with diet and the juice of a raw potato, you can see results coming after six to eight weeks; you can see the fingers straightening out. ANTI-SOURCES OF POTASSIUM: ALCOHOL. It's one of the biggest enemies I can tell you. It is the greatest depleter of potassium, the greatest, and the terrible one. COFFEE. I'm a great advocate for Bambu coffee and coffee substitutes made from natural grains. Now, I come to another enemy, and that is KITCHEN SALT, and it is a tremendous anti-source of potassium. If you take salt, please take sea salt, or take Herbamare salt, or any of these salt substitutes. Just cut your salt intake right down. It also has a terrible influence on the kidneys. SUGAR is another one. There are plenty of natural sweeteners. You can have honey. In the uncivilized countries, they eat sugar cane, sometimes even more than we eat sugar, and they use their teeth like pliers. In Britain, not even two per cent of the people have good teeth with all the refined sugar intake. So you cut out white sugar and you cut out WHITE FLOUR. Nobody can tell me there is anything in white flour. Flour is fantastic as it was given to us by God originally but we have bleached it and processed it and spoiled it. And then people are surprised when they develop wheat allergies. I put people with allergies and skin problems on a wheat free diet for three or four weeks, and get marvellous results. Now carbohydrates burn up well in the system, like wood in the fire. They just leave dust, and dust can leave the body; you don't get all the bowel problems from it. But ANIMAL PROTEINS burn up like coal in the fire - they leave the stones and the crystals. You can hear them in the joints, all this creaking and groaning. And especially cut out meat of the PIG. That's pork, sausages, bacon, ham, etc. Cut these out immediately. They have not only the highest percentage of animal fat; they have the highest percentage in animal acid as well. And this is one of the biggest enemies in rheumatism and arthritis. I don't like to say this, but you must keep the ACID down. I mostly advise patients to cut out grapefruit and oranges. Cut these out. And to help even more, cut your DAIRY PRODUCTS down. The people say to me, "Oh, doctor, what can I eat? What's there left over?" And I say, "I'm going to tell you, because there's plenty left over." Another big enemy in our work is CORTISONE. You can see how things go wrong in orthodox medicine when you see how often cortisone is prescribed when it's not necessary. It's a great anti-source of potassium. And DIURETICS. I had an 18-year-old patient who was absolutely crippled with arthritis, and the only cause was the use of diuretics. REMEDIES: What medication do we use? As I've told you the most important medication is DIET. You'll also naturally sometimes use HOMEOPATHY, and this does a wonderful job to get these stiff limbs working again. The after effects of measles and mumps and chicken pox can produce arthritis, and we can clear that with homeopathy. There are people who are constantly in contact with petrol, or who do a lot of car driving and attract rheumatism and arthritis. We simply give them a similum in homeopathy called Plumbum 30 which clears the system beautifully, if there is any lead poisoning involved, and there very often is. Taxi drivers in Glasgow have a very high percentage of arthritis and rheumatism. We also strengthen the system with ACUPUNCTURE, and we have great successes. We had a young man there, he was six years old, and he was absolutely crippled with arthritis, and within two months he was over it. Injuries, falls, accidents and trauma can be a cause. We might do manipulation for it, and in the very bad cases, I use the combination of acupuncture and diet and one or two good homeopathic remedies. I also want to mention VITAMIN C. There is nothing better to gear up the immune system than vitamin C, and especially for rheumatism-arthritis patients. Take at least two grams (2000 mg.) a day. It's very important. You can take safely two to three 3 grams a day. If it's very serious, I might step it up to much higher dosages, but two or three grams can be done safely. Do not use chewable vitamin C. Just the pure tablets. I have removed oranges and grapefruit from the diet which are rich sources of vitamin C, but black currant juice, and black currants and some of the berries are very rich in vitamin C. The remedies I have had a great deal of success with recently are a combination of Seatone (which is the extract of the green lipped mussel) and a remedy of Dr. Vogel's-Imperatritica. Imperatritica and Seatone. That's a super combination. We did extensive trials in a few of the hospitals with Seatone, and that combination, and we've had some very positive results. We know that the rheumatism and arthritis patient has to be very careful with his blood condition, and most of them, I would say 80% at least, are anemic. You can help that a great deal, because there are plenty of natural sources to get your blood up to standard. You don't need iron injections for that. I'll give you a fine recipe for the blood. You take it three times per week if you have a tendency to anemia. Take four dried pears which you get from the health store (unsulphured), and soak them overnight in red grape juice. You have a fantastic iron deliverer there. Plenty of greens are also very good. And if that doesn't help, take a raw egg, and beat that in grape juice two or three times a week. That's another good one. And at least get your bloodcount up to standard because it's very important. Get plenty of sunshine and exercise. Now, I've made some significant statements, and I think I'm justified in making them. I had a letter, before I left Scotland, just a few days before I left, from one of the top surgeons in Glasgow. He's a most famous surgeon, and I highly respect him. When I saw him sitting in my waiting room, I thought, now what could be wrong with this man? Well, he came in and said, "At long last, I'm coming for your help". He started with arthritis in his shoulder. He said: "Sometimes I feel like a fool. I'm standing there in the operating room, and I can't even hold the scalpel. What am I going to do? I've been to my colleagues. I've had treatments, and I've been through the whole rigamarole. Nothing helps." I said: "I'll tell you quickly. You're too fat and you eat all the wrong things and you're far too fond of your whiskey. So we're going to put you on a nice diet, and we'll see what we can do." Now, I'll just read to you one or two sentences from his letter: "I am very pleased to be in the swim again, as I found the inactivity almost as bad as all the pain, at times. I wish to thank you most sincerely for all your services and attention, so effective and so prompt. And I will never hesitate to come back to you because you have a bit more to offer than we have." Wasn't that wonderful? And so that's the reason I say to you that we can safely say that alternative medicine is a bit closer to the answer. I will go so far as to say to you that alternative medicine is more advanced in the treatment of rheumatism and arthritis than orthodox medicine. This is perhaps one of the reasons that I left orthodox medicine many years ago. I had one morning, two letters in the post, that have concerned me ever since. One letter was from the British Medical Association, and they asked every doctor in the country to help with the great problem of the increasing occurrence of overweight, heart diseases, blood pressure and so on. Fifty-five percent of the British population suffered with these problems, 29% suffered from arthritis, and they asked the help of every doctor to decrease that percentage. And I asked myself, where has science failed? And we have. The second letter was from one of my old professors, in Germany. That poor man was put in prison. He had written a book about cancer, and how much cancer had to do with diet, and the book was forbidden. When he refused to take it off the market, he was put in prison. When I visited him, I only said, "Well, Professor, just think about Copernicus and the 16th and 17th Century establishment. They told him he was an idiot. And still today we believe what he said. Some day your theories, your diet and your thoughts will be known to be true." And so it happened. Today he is the very top man in cancer research work in America. * * * http://www.consumerhealth.org/articles/display.cfm?ID=19990817230721