We discuss:
- Inflammation is the enemy because it creates more inflammation via a vicious cycle.
- The mindset should not be ‘avoid meds at all costs’ but to ‘minimise inflammation at all times’.
- Disease-modifying drugs and the biologic drugs when administered correctly, carefully, thoughtfully for the right symptoms normally provide far more benefits to a long-term healing plant then they do negative side effects.
- Medications, diet, exercise, stress reduction and supplements are 5 major tools in reversing RA.
Good day, it’s Clint here with another tip on reversing rheumatoid arthritis symptoms naturally. Today I want to talk about this concept of inflammation being your enemy. Some people say to me when they join Paddison Program support so that I can help them one on one, they say I must avoid medications at all costs. I refuse medications, those toxic drugs I’ll never take them. Now that is making medications the enemy. And yet with rheumatoid arthritis medications are not the enemy. Inflammation is the enemy. And so what we need to do is we need to use all the tools in our toolkit to reduce inflammation. Why do we want to do that? Why is inflammation the enemy?
Inflammation is the enemy for so many reasons but mainly because inflammation in the body creates more inflammation via a vicious cycle. So joint inflammation is simultaneously present with gut lining inflammation. And gut lining inflammation causes more intestinal permeability which results in more proteins entering the bloodstream which results in more of your body’s self- attack on your joints. So we must keep inflammation low so we don’t get into any pain vicious cycle. But inflammation, of course, is an enemy for a very commonsensical reason which that it causes joint damage and this pain where there’s inflammation when you’ve got rheumatoid arthritis or another of the autoimmune inflammatory arthritic conditions. So we must keep inflammation low. And so it’s not about having a mindset of avoiding medications at all costs. When some instances, medications serve a very important purpose in our long-term healing plan.
For example, I was not able to get my inflammation levels low enough after messing around and experimenting with my diet and supplements and so forth in the first 12 months since I was diagnosed. And after 12 months I was in a terrible way and then went on to methotrexate. Now whilst methotrexate wasn’t the be all and end all to helping me get well, it certainly enabled me to suppress inflammation significantly and without it I would not have had low enough inflammation levels for my body to be able to have enough leeway or breathing space to get some healing done like I was able to.
Medications, diet, exercise, stress reduction and supplements. There are five tools in our toolkit and if we say I will never take medications, that’s like being a plumber and trying to fix your kitchen sink while the water is rushing through it. And looking at the tools in your toolkit and looking at things like your plunger, your screwdriver, your plumbing tape, and your wrench and say I’m going to try and fix this sink but I’ll never ever use the wrench no matter what. It’s out of the question and then finding that the suitable tool for the amount of water flow and the problems with the sink that’s required would be the wrench.
And so then to avoid using the wrench means that sink will never get fixed. And that’s not what we want. We want to fix the sink, so we need to use the unwanted tool which is the wrench so that we get this sink fixed then it makes the most sense.
And so that’s my thought process around disease-modifying drugs and biologic drugs. These drugs are not the enemy. In most cases, they offer a suitable match to symptoms to allow a long-term game plan and that game plan ends with the potential of being able to taper those medications downwards. Now that is a different approach than trying to avoid them altogether and then putting up with ongoing high levels of inflammation for years and jumping between painkillers and prednisone and short-term pain relief which is a terrible strategy.
Okay, so the only enemies with medications are ones that will cause us to have exacerbation of the condition is what I was after. And that the prednisone, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, your proton pump inhibitor antacids and some of the sleeping tablet brands antibiotics. And so these are enemies sure. But the disease-modifying drugs and the biologic drugs when administered correctly, carefully, thoughtfully for the right symptoms normally provide far more benefits to a long-term healing plant then they do negative side effects.
So that’s my thoughts for today. I hope this is really helpful for you if you’ve got this mindset that medications are the enemy – inflammation is the enemy. And so we need to treat with great caution our inflammation levels and keep them low. The two non-negotiable in our programs are low pain levels all the time. That’s a non-negotiable. The other is to be not worsening month to month. So if we can keep low pain levels and we’re not worsening month to month, we will see victories as we deploy all the other natural aspects of the Paddison Program.
So I hope that’s super helpful and I wish you a really happy Healing Day and if you want more from me, make sure you subscribe to this YouTube channel and also follow our podcast, iTunes and join our mailing list paddisonprogram.com. Have a wonderful day!