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Comment by bilsbie | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone treated arthritis with diet? I feel way better when I get off processed foods for a few days.

(Not sure if I have arthritis but really sore hips and lower back.)

Your gut health has a direct impact on your lower back. If you are intolerant of some foods, when you inflame your gut, your lower back can end up in pain as well.

I'm intolerant of a milk protein. I can handle the bathroom consequences, I can't handle the lower back consequences.

Interesting. I’m starting to suspect dairy. I just tried switching to a2 milk but didn’t notice a difference. Have you tried a2 milk with the a2 casein protein?

I have not. I'm rarely in a country where that is available. Usually when I'm in the states, I'm not willing to experiment with it on my one week visit.

Foods that decrease inflammation _probably_ help with arthritis; processed foods _generally_ increase inflammation, which is probably why you feel better not eating them.

For more than just anecdotes you can go to the data/studies; pubmed.gov is a great resource for finding studies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=arthritis+diet

There is also nutritionfacts, which takes a science and clinical study based approach to look at how diet plays a role in a whole host of diseases and conditions: https://nutritionfacts.org/?s=arthritis

* nutritionfacts and Dr. Greger do have several vocal opponents however, so I encourage you to read the studies themselves and come to your own conclusions

I have a sero-negative inflammatory arthritis. The only thing that makes it better is meloxicam; that shit is AMAZINGLY effective, completely makes my symptoms go away for 2-3 days if I take the full 15mg. Unfortunately due to the risk of stomach bleeding and my sensitive stomach, I only take 7.5mg every now and then and only 15mg when I really need to do something active (walk long distances). Note: I tried celecoxib and it did nothing, but some people have luck with it over meloxicam.

Now there are foods that make it worse: generally anything with high sodium like pizza, fries, fast-food/restaurant food (Chinese food especially). Caffeine also makes it slightly worse. By far the worst of them all is alcohol though. After the alcohol wears off, I'm in so much agony that I can barely walk.

Huh, is a pill the only delivery system that works for that drug?

Is meloxicam very different from ibuprofen?

> I feel way better when I get off processed foods for a few days.

What does "processed foods" mean? Do you eat raw food that isn't combined in any way?

Processed foods usually refers to packaged snacks, food with lots of added ingredients, corn oils, artificial ingredients, etc or fast food/junk food ordered at restaurants/fast-casual places.

There is a classification system for how processed foods are:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification

Under that classification, boiling potatoes counts as processing them.

Something as minor as rinsing fruit in tap water can count as processing - it could affect the lifespan of the fruit or its nutritional content.

Of course, that isn't the only definition out there.

I think most people are referring to the “Ultra-processed” category when they talk about processed foods in a health context.

If a family farm couldn't produce it themselves I try to avoid it. I think this works pretty well as a rule of thumb (and justifies me stilling having beer and wine lol)

Ketchup is processed, tomatoes are not. Processed contains added salt, sweetener, preservatives etc.

It's hard to draw a hard line but with common sense you can figure it out.

Pedantics aside, they probably mean ultra-processed.

I've heard people had good results with cutting out all dairy.

(They were already eating very "clean": little meat, no refined sugar, no refined starches, very little vegetable oils)

Dairy, as I understand it, is highly inflammatory. Arthritis is some form of inflammation.

Q: Do sore hips, and sore back .. could that be a FRONT of body issue .. or internal organs? Like, kidneys?

How old are you? This may be sacroiliitis. It can be diagnosed with an MRI scan.

I’m 44. Interesting idea. My pain is top of the back hips. But could be. It doesn’t sound like it’s treated any differently than arthritis or random joint pain? Is it worth getting diagnosed?

> It doesn’t sound like it’s treated any differently than arthritis or random joint pain?

I'm not an expert but I think there are specific treatments depending on the cause.

> Is it worth getting diagnosed?

I guess that's a balance against the time and money it will cost you to get a diagnosis vs the benefit. Where I live, cost would be about 3-5 hours and $300-1000 in consultations, blood tests and scans if you're not insured.

Benefits are: being able to halt ongoing joint degradation, preventing or quickly reacting to more impactful flare-ups, making better long-term choices in exercise, diet etc.

But it may be unrelated!

Aren't you lactose intolerant or have other food allergy?

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