Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; NSAIDs and protective measures

Empty stomach middle of the nite stuff because one cannot sleep is the pits. I used soya milk first for a while, but could not find a starchless one. Maybe a few teaspoons of olive oil would help to line the gut...
There MUST be something in the stomach to mitigate the physical presence of the NSAID, but the systemic damage is its main problem. A friend of mine with AS took Indicid as suppositories for yeasr to protect his gut and then - years later - found out that it still affects the gut.
Enteric naproxen worked for me.
Aloe vera gel is the clear stuff from inside the leaf and no leaf skin (has other uses). Recommended straight or with juice. My use was have a glass of water by bed to drink upon wakening. 15 mins later have the aloe vera, another fifteen minutes minimum for any food. Depends on life style and time in the morning and how early one rises.
If only in mornings then i'd take 40 ml, if i used it before evening meal as well then 30 ml each time. I didn't use aloe until after i'd done three months of ACV (apple cider vinegar) each morning, or twice daily as well.
I went cold turkey - found immediate relief, but slowly worsened and needed an occasional pill, not pred, but have nothing against it.

Airman, Ted, and the rest of you, thank you so much for your input. This thread has been good for me. It proved to be a rude but necessary awakening from my rather nonchalant relationship with Ibuprofen. I finally get it. Heard the choir. NEVER again a NSAID with just a pear or less!

I just entered my 10th week on NSD. It has been a bumpy ride to say the least. Initially I went cold turkey on NSAIDs. Was not able to sustain this for more than a week. My initial superflare lasted through my first three weeks on NSD. Since then steady (read stubborn) medium level inflammation and the AS works.

By week six I decided to do a course of Cipro. Day one brought some relief. Day two, three and four were GREAT. Was able to reduce Ibuprofen to 4x 200 mg./day. Setback on day five and since then a sharp BURNING pain just below my right shoulder blade (this is a new pain for me. Feels like fire deep inside) Blend in hip and ribcage pain and intermittent short moments of excruciating muscle spasms between the shoulders, and there you have it. Two steps forward and three steps back.

While the antibiotics initially triggered a positive reaction, they also worked to induce a new flare. During Cipro, too, I began experiencing slight personal itching. Very slight but enough to ring alarm bells. Did do two weeks of anti-candida regimen (caprylic acid, colloidal silver, garlic) prior to Cipro. However, I dread that there may be a very real candida factor in this picture.

In the past week I have trialed Cataflam/Diclofenac for the first time. It feels like regressing, and I guess it is, but I needed the break. Cataflam did the trick (ONLY taken on full stomach). The fire mid-back is not as bad. I can walk pretty well.

For 2 1/2 months now strict NSD, no dairy, no refined sugar, no eggs. An odd starchy tomato or red pepper here and there. I have not been able to reduce pain to a tolerable level. Have not yet been able, either, to correlate food and pain. The latter seems rather, and frustratingly so, to be closely connected to the potency of Ibuprofen. When the NSAIDs start wearing off, pain increases.

Rewinding a bit, I had one strange but fabulous day, though, in week 5. Woke up without a tender spine and no costochondroitis!! I could walk without limping. This day was a great boost to hope and faith in NSD. Thought I would catch the wave and went straight into a three-day pear diet. Pain levels went up immediately and did not come down again until my first days on Cipro. Scanned what I had eaten the days before and it was all same old, same old: fish, salads, fruits, garlicky spinach. Except, that is, for two items: Three days before I had started taking a spoonful of yogurt mornings and Solgar's Advanced Multi-billion Dophilus. Could this be it? During pear-diet, I abandoned these, of course. The following week, with pain going up up again, I tried the trick again. Three days of yogurt and probiotics. No effect. And by this time, too, I had looked up the ingredients in the Solgar capsules on the web (all written in Hebrew on the bottle) and found potato starch!!! Did they work despite the starch? Does this mean I can tolerate some starch? Was it not the probiotics? Why this one out-of-the-blue no-cement-in-my-spine day?

Now I have decided to cut out the fruit, fresh and dried. What else can I do? Is there another way to interpret this my antibiotics experience? This IS a sacrifice. Fruit has always been the first thing on my mind mornings and last thing nights.
Hmmm..

Just odds and ends. Mostly odds.
Take care all,
N

Seems like you had just enough of some relief to inspire you to further moves.
Unfortunately, fasting and cold turkey on meds seem to go together as food is necessary to protect the gut from the meds. The only reasonable idea i can suggest is to try meds on top of 3 or 4 teaspoons of EVOO so olive oil is the only food.
I did this sometimes as i often broke my naproxen pills in half so soaked them in OO.
Cannot over emphasise that it seems necessary to change one's whole attitude to food and eating - from stimulation of the taste buds towards simple nutrition, healing and the condition of the canal itself.

If you're worried about intestinal or stomach damage try Celebrex. I believe you can take it on an empty stomach.

You NEED fruit on a NSD, as restricted as you've been doing it. Don't cut that out, you NEED the fruit carbohydrates. I'd be more suspicious of the yoghurt and the potato starch in the Solgar's.

With this disease, it's like water tide on the beach because there is always going to be ebb and flow of how stiff you are, if you are in an unmedicated state you don't fear the bad days because you know they will be followed naturally by better ones. Medication knocks down inflamation but when taken long term it also trains the brain to anticipate pain as a reaction to the medicine levels running low. You will need to train your brain out of that expectation. It's quite an endeavor. (I dearly love ibuprofen for getting me thru my twenties and thirties and beyond, not yet knowing about the diet aspect, but my kidneys have said spoken and they say no more daily NSAIDS) Ibuprofen also should, in my opinion, have a warning label on it that it can cause depression when taken in large doses daily. This is what I meant about the mental aspect also. So many people take the NSAIDS and they don't realize that is one of the long term side effects and it is just as real as a cause of pain and feeling poorly as the disease itself.

Nattush:

Reading your posts, I was remembering some of my problems. Also my AS is rebel to only NSD. Tried much of products advised to you by other friends here. Also I suspected about Candida connection.

Here the post "Update on NSD - 2004/12" I wrote in that date:

"In March I was in remision –I wrote then talling about it- and things went almost well until august-september: one big and progresive flare. I couldn’t understand why that happened, since following strictly NSD, etc, but 150 mg of Indometacine + 2,5 mg of prednisone were needed in Octobre. Appel fasts made situation more bearable, but some days after fasts pains and stiffness were on the same bad level.

Reading many posts on this forum, my first suspect was Candida. Then, I decided to leave all sugars, chocolate, dried figs, etc. And tried again Bee propolis, one natural bactericide and fungicide. In one month my medication level lowered to 0,0 prednisone and 100 mg indometacine. In Novembre, my doctor give me one very old medication: Colcichine. This is for gout, but doctor was suspecting some problems with uric acid. Some months ago I told about Bee propolis here; but nobody mentioned Colcichine in this forum.

Today, this is my situation: always on strict NSD (since three years ago) with 50 mg indometacine, some Bee propolis ( 25 drops 3 times per day) and 1mg colchicine I walk and live quite well, and inflamations are almost gone. Maybe I’m in remision again".

That was in 2004-12. Today I need only 25 mg Indometacihe every 1 or 2 days, and going -walking, climbing mountains, etc.- very well. Bee propolis works very well for me to fighting klebsiella and candida, healing the gut, etc. Always on NSD, of course.

Some other AS kickers felt improvements taking bee propolis. Someone tell me about problems with alcoholic propolis, but there is also in capsules, oil, etc.

I think that is worth to try it. And surely is not so difficult to obtain it in Palestine (much people take propolis for throat and flu). It's is cheap. There is propolis on commercial brands and propolis made by beekeepers (manufacturing it is very easy).

You can read more about bee propolis here:
http://www.ugr.es/~ars/abstract/45-21-04.pdf
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0076e/w0076e14.htm

If you decided to try it, I can give to you more information or advices. "Izan untsa!" (goodbye).

Pello.

Dear Wind_rider,
I agree with you on all counts. Maybe next to depression, the label should warn against extreme mood swings. Insane moodiness!

I spent a lot of time and energy last year preparing myself for this relapse as I was coming off Humira (hypnosis, meditation, all kinds of mental training) so that IF I would ever be in serious long-term pain again, I would know better how to take it well.

Well, after six years of reprieve, I guess I should be able to tackle three months of pain with a positive spirit, especially considering I am now armed with NSD and in the process of healing. I do think I am. Many days I am. And then many days I am not. There is definitely a fear factor. The fear of this being just the beginning of endless pain as I knew it.

As of late I have become more relaxed about this whole process. Being scared of not being able to rid myself of this pain and frantic about making the NSD work (work, work!!!!) is not helping me, I know. NSAID-induced or not, yes, I agree, fear, anxiety, fatigue and depression are just as real as causes or enhancers of pain.

I NEED fruit, I want fruit!!! But I cannot explain why the Cipro suddenly stopped working on day 5. I have done a few fruitless days now and the once-a-day-itching has stopped (or am I going crazy?).

Thinking in terms of balance, I never was balanced about fruit. If it is possible I would surely characterize as someone who over-indulged in fruit. Maybe being less fruity/one daily serving is better, more balanced at this point until I figure out how to make my next move.
And now it rains again in Ramallah!
N

If I come across as wavering, I really am not. It is not a matter of if, only WHEN NSD will work for me.

Not in this for the excitement of flavour either. Even though I guess I am lucky in that respect. It is no problem to make simple foods delicious. I have no difficulty uhmmm'ing away over steamed cabbage or being creative with even the most limited repertoire of food items.

Fruitless now for a few days. And for a few days, too, now I have been NSAID-free during the day and taken Diclofenac 100 mg. (suppository) before bed only. The days have been ok, by late afternoon and onwards pain and stiffness go up up up.
I upgraded (or downgraded, whichever you prefer) from Ibuprofen to Diclofenac 10 days ago. It has been two odd days, I tell you, without anti-inflammatories during the day. But how?
Is this NSAID suddenly proving more potent, lasting longer?
Is it the elimination of fruit sugar?

Also confused about inflammation levels. A month into NSD my CRP was 36 (normal range below 6). Yesterday, six NSD weeks and a course of Cipro later, CRP was raised to 96! No amount of borage seed oil, EFAs, ginger root tea, raw garlic seem to take this inflammation down.

Is this all due to NSAIDs sometimes taken on "empty" stomach? After all, I only began this daily NSAID-use 3 1/2 months ago.

I would do a fast if there were any reserves to burn. But some of my aching lately stems from my stomach (slight bloating, feeling hungry but without big appetite, having a constant small "hole" in my stomach). Lost some kilos overall, which I attribute to pain, not the NSD. Now 47 kgs/169 cm. Not a good fasting candidate.

Go even plainer? Cut out some of the greens? Leave in the nuts? Leave out the fruits?
A simple, healing diet. Trying to determine what is healing for me. But with inflammation at this intensity (in side ribs, sternum, btw shoulders today), I still have not begun to assemble my safe and sound foods list.

One more observation that goes beyond just these two last days. More than morning stiffness, I generally find evenings to be the most difficult. Surely something to think about. Any NSD "safe" food
c o u l d be the culprit. Or some factor X...
End of ramble,
N

Pello,
thank you for your post. Perfectly timed, too, but that is a different story.

Yes, I am very interested to learn more about bee propolis. Were you able initially to find relief through NSD, or only via NSD in combination with bee propolis?

Much of my frustration lies in the fact that if this is Candida, it surely does not manifest itself very clearly. A little itch. Now you feel it, now you don't. Mostly you don't. Did you have obvious symptoms?
And did you ever trial John's antibiotic protocol?

Will read up on propolis tonight.
Shukran, Pello.
Salamat,
N