OK, Mrs A is generally pretty physically fit and very healthy, looks after herself. She’s 51, a part time hairdresser and loves her job.

However, over the last couple of years, she’s seen a gradual deterioration with her fingers (index and middle), one hand and now both. The docs are suggesting Rheumatoid arthritis, a reasonably normal progression so nothing too severe (“happens to lots of people”). But after a day’s hairdressing, her fingers (index and middle) can be uncomfortable/sore. Those 2 fingers are now slightly crooked/lumpy permanently.

She’s seen docs and specialist and had 1 steroid injection, which temporarily helped. She’s not had any specialist advise as to whether hairdressing exacerbates the problem – indeed, there’s a suggestion that the physical activity might be helpful. But no definite advice.

She works x2 9am-2.30pm days and 1 full day per week. And loves it. She has great flexibility so can easily ramp up/down her shifts, days/work pattern.

She’s a bit down, wondering whether to give it up. I’m encouraging her to rethink her work pattern, maybe more shifts of fewer hours. She’s also considering changing her diet to an arthritis friendly one, which can’t do any harm.

Has anyone any experience of Rheumatoid arthritis and any advice, suggestions … willing to try/do anything! Thanks

Plenty of medicines available to help with RA nowadays. Suggest she goes back to see the rheumatologist.

Sorry to hear this. I was taken off my feet at 30 wth RA. Things have changed a lot since then with drug treatment so can’t comment on newer treatments. I was fearful of the well-documented negative effects of disease-modifying drugs at the time, so went the natural route and forced the thing into remission via an elimination diet. Margaret Hills Clinic, Kenilworth. Not the easiest (or cheapest) option, but it took the flare-ups away entirely within 6 weeks so remission achieved(fingers crossed) 21 years ago now. I wish had started earlier though as the 10 month initial runaround I had with the NHS before diagnosis cost me irreparable bilateral joint damage, so can no longer run at all, nor walk very far. Not because of active disease, but because of the deformation and damage left behind.

Earliest pro-action advised whatever she decides. The stiffness and inflammation needs to be taken away right now, as the permanent joint-damage happens if you ‘grin and bear it’. 50 is still terribly young to quit a career for health reasons. I know my story is anecdotal, and IANAD etc.

*has she tried regular contrast-baths for her hands? I was in howling pain (ankle joints) and contrast-baths helped massively, cannot overstate.

As a long term sufferer myself my best advice would be to get her ask her GP to refer her to the local Rheumatologist.

Early intervention of any sort is really important and can make a huge difference.

All the best to you and your wife.

Ian

All I can add is get a meeting with a consultant at a rheumatology dept to discuss options..

I’m having real issues with this currently – had a massive immune response reaction to soething still unknown around 3 years ago and almost immediately after this started suffering excruciating joint pain in fingers/hands/arms.

Have been diagnosed with RA and told the ‘gold’ standard treatment for my level of issue was low-dose methotrexate (a chenmo drug usually used in much higher dose rates to treat cancer patients !) combined with hydroxychloroqinine.

these two in combination have stabilised the RA, but i’m still having issues with hands/fingers and my hands now ‘claw-up’ and its very hard to straighten fingers without pain – has made riding my bike and working on bike/cars a real PITA…

Been offered a move to a new drug called Humira, but the posible side effects of this scare me more than the current side effects from the treatment I am on..

I need to try and see if diet change will help – I am only mid-fifties and this thing has completely shafted my mobility and also left me very depressed…

Get advice and hopefully also some help from RA helpline at your local hospital/NHS centre

Good luck with getting your wife’s health back on track.

Regards – U.Z.

As above, I have PA not RA but same treatments, it’s not game over but as suggested get to a Rheumatologist and let them treat. I’m currently on methotrexate, sulfasalzine and the new biological. Best wishes to your wife

I need to try and see if diet change will help

Worked IME, and can now eat anything. But describing what I had to do to get there* as a ‘diet change’ would be like describing full-blown RA as ‘feeling a bit achey’ 😐

– Cut out all foodstuffs except for IIRC 5 (bland) items in diet sheet + protein drink + daily supplements
– Epsom salts immersion baths twice daily (had to sign a printed statement to assure chemists that I wasn’t about to make explosives with the sacks of salts 🤣🤣)
– Drink mollasses and cider vinegar every day
– Contrast joint baths (hot-cold-hot-cold)

after 6 weeks of this it was (as they say) a ‘miraculous’ change. Not convinced cutting a few things from my diet would have achieved similar results and/or full remission. ymmv. IANAD, could have been coincidental spontaneous remission etc

If better/safer drugs had been available back then I’d probably have gone down that route first. Nonetheless, very grateful daily to not be in that state now, it really does bring you down, I was at one point v.close to elective amputation and prostheses in order to reclaim mobility/remove pain.

thanks all, really appreciated – currently Googling hard and it’s brilliant to be able to go to Mrs A with some positive suggestions/actions

Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic autoimmune disease which can and does affect the entire body. If your wife has had symptoms in just 2 fingers then I suspect it is probably osteoarthritis, not rheumatoid (especially if she’s had problems for a long time with no other joint involvement or symptoms). You can google pictures for the effect of OA and RA on hands – this might help you. OA fingers tend to get nodules on the last joint of the finger and the tip can go a different direction to the rest of the finger whereas RA fingers tend to deviate at the knuckle joint and can go into swan neck deformity.
The drug management of the 2 diseases is very different and I would suggest a rheumatologist is really the best person to see to diagnose RA.

For osteoarthritis try the versus arthritis website for all things related to self help such as exercise and diet. Hope this helps, Linda

A Keto diet can help arthritis sufferers. I’ve been doing Keto for the past 8 weeks for weight loss (1.5 stone lost so far) and have read lots of anecdotes by arthritis sufferers saying that Keto has helped ease and even get rid of arthritis symptoms.

I read your post an with limited info thought OA too, which probably has less marked implications

The drug management of the 2 diseases is very different and I would suggest a rheumatologist is really the best person to see to diagnosis

+1. But take action early, ie contrast hydrotherapy at least

Contrast baths for arthritis pain

thanks again all. Linda, I think your question is bang on … OA vs RA and simply looking at Google images and reading suggests OA. So she’s agreed to push our GP to get referred again and pursue it.

But from my reading as a definite non-expert, OA seems more likely? So advice this way … and thanks

Good luck for your wife OP.
Interested to hear that certain diets might help with OA as well.
I’ll have a look but any other info as well as the keto and any food types to be avoided?
Cheers

A second conversation with the GP is needed either way – if it’s RA, referral and medication should be considered, it is not ‘just one of those things’. If there has been a miscommunication and it’s suspected osteoarthritis, then you can have a chat about ways to manage it.

A Keto diet can help arthritis sufferers.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it had an anti-inflammatory effect, because normally you’re eating shedloads of greens alongside the cheese feast.

Hi Aus
Reading your post I thought it was more likely to be OA because of the length of time she’s had symptoms and no other joint involvement. With RA you can go fit as a flea to barely able to get out of bed in a disturbingly short time – weeks not months.

You might want to consider asking to see a hand therapist (might be an OT or a physiotherapist), if a rheumatologist diagnoses OA then this is likely what they’ll do anyway

As already said sounds a bit more like OA than RA. Get back to Docs etc and get your wife’s bloods checked out.
If it is RA, treatment has come on leaps and bounds over years.
All the best.

I suffered from really bad arthitic type pain in my ankle for years,but after a friend gave me some rhustox to take it really helped with the pain and stiffness. Rhustox is a natural remedy for arthritis and inflammation. Could be worth a try.

sorry to hear that OP; Mrs R has been dealing with RA for a few years now and if her experiences are anything to go by there is no one-size-fits-all silver bullet which will make everything OK.

If it helps, there will be good days ahead once they find a combination of drugs which works, but (in our experience at least) you probably do need to be set for a fairly lengthy process of (informed) guesswork / trial & error(?) before they get there

I got diagnosed with RA about 12 years ago (in my mid 20’s) and it started exactly the way you describe for your wife. For the first six months I was terrified and, despite my symptoms being much less severe than they have been since, I was crippled by the fear of what might happen.
Tell her not to make any decisions about her job or anything until she’s got her head around the diagnosis and what it means for her.
RA is a broad church and different for everyone. I’ve been fairly lucky. Every day hurts like sweet buggery but I’m still mobile and can still ride a bike a bit (but don’t ask me to do anything for the first hour of the day). They tried methotrexate on me but it just made me sick, other people I know swear by it though. The things that work best for me are carrying on doing the things I love, otherwise you’ll just spend your life sitting around thinking about pain, which is depressing.

A change in diet really helped my wife, we discovered it by accident when she tried veganism, it was like magic. The diet didn’t suit her but within weeks of stopping eating dairy her arthritis-like symptoms went. She knits, a lot, and we’d thought she would have to give it up as it had got so bad and she was also having real difficulty walking as it had affected her feet and ankles.
Now she’s pain free and has even taken up running when she thought she was going to be walking with a stick.
Since giving up, when she eats any dairy by accident it makes her really quite ill.

Does your wife have any other swollen or tender Joints? One of the standard scores is to count the number of the above out of 28 joints (mainly fingers and toes) Then add a correction for blood inflammatory markers. A high score is a measure of disease severity (DAS28). There should also be hand x-rays to look at joint spaces as another measure of severity (Sharp Score). She needs both of these assessments from a rheumatologist. Your GP will need to refer you, or if you’d like to pay, an initial consultation will be about £200 and you’ll normally go onto their NHS list thereafter.

There have been many advances in RA therapies, but the biggest has been to give aggressive treatment (biologicals) from as early as possible. RA is a progressive disease that can go remarkably fast or slowly. But joint damage is irreversible. If your rheumatologist says methotrexate is standard of care and gold standard, find a new, preferably younger one more in tune with modern therapy.

As for difference between RA and OA, well OA is not an autoimmune disease. There are also no effective approved therapies. For RA this is not true, and a test for inflammatory markers (CRP, IL6 and ESR) ideally when she has a flare, will help. Does she respond to ibuprofen?

Not a rheumatologist, but I develop RA drugs (and oncology and HIV and respiratory) for my day job.

Worked IME, and can now eat anything. But describing what I had to do to get there* as a ‘diet change’ would be like describing full-blown RA as ‘feeling a bit achey’ 😐

A change in diet really helped my wife, we discovered it by accident when she tried veganism, it was like magic. The diet didn’t suit her but within weeks of stopping eating dairy her arthritis-like symptoms went.

A Keto diet can help arthritis sufferers.

I had brutal RA symptoms for several years in my late 20s, affecting my finger and toe joints. I was actively contemplating suicide. Having your mobility so thoroughly taken away from you, well, I can’t really find the words to describe what a negative effect it had on me. I am very sorry for your wife – and everyone else who’s going through it on this thread.

However, to echo posts from Malvern Rider and Earl_Grey, a change in diet over a period of about three years reduced my symptoms to almost nothing unless I overexert myself (e.g. swimming multiple days in a row makes my hands hurt). That’s still the case nearly a decade later, albeit with some permanent joint deterioration.

In my case, I went strict paleo for several years. No gluten (I think this was the major factor in my case), high saturated fat, low carb – boiled white rice when I did want starchy carbs for exercise. I also avoided nightshades and sardines (I can’t remember the scientific arguments, but there is some – whether you buy into it or not is of course up to you!), but did continue eating dairy which I established has no negative effect on me. I’m able to be much less strict now my symptoms are under control, but I still basically eat the same way – albeit back to a normal amount of (non wheat) carbs and a very occasional pork pie or pizza as a treat.

I’m certain there’s no one-size-fits-all dietary approach, but I’d second/third your wife experimenting with what she eats.

Also, old wives tail, but I found regularly stinging the hell out of my hands and feet with nettles provided a good amount of temporary relief, which I prefer to taking painkillers. A bit like acupuncture I guess.

I would recommend your wife tries to avoid further cortisone injections, as while these can provide temporary relief I understand they can also accelerate joint deterioration – though medical types on the thread, feel free to correct me if this is BS.

Thank you all, really appreciated and it does give a boost in taking some action. So
– booked in to see the GP with the aim of getting referred
– Googled clinics/functional medicine approach and spoke with Margaret Hills clinic, v helpful. Starting on their diet (and been really interested/encouraged by the number of references to how diet can positively help)
– googled physio/exercise/acupuncture specialists in arthritis and booked in to start that

So it feels good that’s there some sort of action happening … thank you all

had a massive immune response reaction to something still unknown around 3 years ago

My Dad has/ has had a similar problem with swollen joints. He read some research suggesting it’s an immune response to the body’s own collagen as it wears in the joints and becomes detectable in the blood.

He’s been taking a collagen supplement that enables components of collagen to be passed into the bloodstream and learnt as friendly by the immune system. They were working well for him last time we talked about them. I’ll ask him if he’s still going with them and find out the name.

“Yes, they still work for me. Undenatured Type II collagen. Hard to get hold of, but mine are made by Swanson.”

Worth a try, if you’re trying stuff.

I like to imagine that I am bound by science and evidence based policy – but despite all the research and docs telling me that its not true, I find that dropping wheat based products gets rid of my minor arthritis. I really notice it return when I fall of the wagon on a mega toast trip or pancake splurge. Been tested for celiac and ‘intolerance’ nothing detectable.
I swear, try it.

As an aside, it is heartening to see all the people here trying to help.

5plusn8 – so true, the support/help is brilliant. Off to look at collagen

There is some really interesting advice here, thanks for sharing folks. After a good run of feeling in good shape I’ve felt that my RA is creeping back. I had been using a lot of the Margret Hill diet in the past but have let it slip for one reason or another. I’m convinced that letting the diet slide has had an effect on my current health down turn. I feel encouraged to get back on it after reading the above posts😊

https://www.nras.org.uk/
MrsT has Psoriatic Arthritis