Foods to help inflammation of PMR

Bones, joints and muscles
1

Hi everyone...... had two hours with my nutritionist friend yesterday morning and the upshot of everything she said is here....

1. Eat as many anti-inflammatory foods as possible on a daily basis which include chillies, garlic, ginger and especially turmeric...... you can sprinkle ground turmeric over food or put it into rice when you cook it etc

2. Use olive oil

3. Pineapple is especially good but needs to be eaten away from other foods to gain the maximum benefit so a good snacking food! Tinned in fruit juice just as good as fresh.......

4. Lots of fresh fruit and veg and mushrooms especially good because of their B3/B5, cabbage, avocado.

5. Beetroot excellent for liver so eat a lot .... especially good raw ( I grate it into salads!)

6. She also recommended using a 'sea' product for the minerals especially those of us on alendronic acid and calcium tabs as they leach vital minerals away in long term use...... so look for a product in a health food store called GREEN NORI SPRINKLE which is a seaweed and you just sprinkle a teaspoon over your food as a seasoning..... tastes quite salty but is packed with vital minerals :D

7. The ONLY supplement she recommended is a Magnesium one as magnesium is excellent for relaxing muscles. She has had no experience of using this with a PMR patient as I am the first to present to her ( she works maily with cancer patients alongside the hospital) but says she feels it would be beneficial..... so start with the smallest bottle they sell and see whether it helps.

Look for MAGNESIUM MALATE and take the daily recommended dose.

Don't want to overwhelm everyone so this is the basic premise of her advice.

Hope you find it helpful.

I am being taken into town later on this morning and will buy the Green Nori and Magnesium Malate and get started......

2

Thanks for that fiftiesgirl. Any info in battling this condition is helpful, and will give some of these ideas a try.

Only downside for me here is that I don't eat much fresh fruit. Unfortunately fruit does a not very nice effect on my bowels.. :cry: But pineapple I do love and can eat ok.

I have also been advised that sardines (in oil) are good..or any oily fish for that matter. Could be a bit hard on the diet, but if it does the trick then so what? :wink:

gilly.

3

Thanks so much, fifties girl,

I have to admit that though I've heard turmeric strongly recommended before (by Mrs O?) I've had to resort to the capsules. I like Indian food but I couldn't take evrything tasting of turmeric - a little goes a long way. Hope that's OK with your friend.

I've also bought seaweed when staying in Ireland - carageen and kelp but never known quite what to do with it so finished up throwing it away. So will definitely try the sprinkles.

Now going to eat my rather unhealthy lunch - will start full of good resolutions and visit health food shop tomorrow!!

Green granny

4

Hello fiftiesgirl

Thank you so much for remembering to share your friend's/nutritionist's good advice with us.

I regularly eat and am a firm believer in the foods you have listed, including gillybee's advice re oily fish (3 times a week - highly anti-inflammatory plus good for the old bones!). Well remembered re the turmeric, Green Granny!

Will definitely look into the seaweed and magensium - although I eat Brazil nuts regularly for their magnesium content, I guess that wouldn't give nearly as much benefit as the supplement. I have also read that if Vit D levels are low our magnesium levels also need to be checked as the latter is needed for the absorption of the former.

I eat as much organic produce as I can to reduce the toxins although I realise that would be an expensive option for some.

Once again, many thanks, and, like Green Granny, off to eat lunch now and hope that it is a healthy one!!!

Once again, many thanks fiftiesgirl.

MrsO

5

Completely forgot to mention the oily fish Salmon, obviously, sardines, mackerel........ it was all in front of me but just so much info overlooked it :lol: :lol:

I eat sardines on toast at least once a week (I mash them with black pepper and some chopped cherry toms) and also have a serving of salmon too.

Managed our short trip to town although exhausted now and off for my rest. Bought my Magnesium Malate ( Biocare) and my Green Nori Sprinkles....... going to put some sprinkles over my veggies later when I cook our main meal :D

6

I meant to post these two recipes which were given me by a NZ friend who lives and works in Seoul during the really cold spell but never got round to it - sorry! Not sure what jaggery is - will look on the internet later. Michael is very \"in\" to healthy diet but I couldn't go to the lengths he does: vegan and no alcohol! I can't vouch for them personally as I haven't tried them but the other teas he introduced me to were wonderful!

Turmeric tea:

2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger

1/2 teaspoon powdered turmeric

1 tablespoon maple syrup

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1. Bring water to a boil, then add powdered herbs. Simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Strain tea into a mug, add maple syrup and lemon, stirring to combine. Drink warm.

Makes 1 serving.

Turmeric milk:

Heat 2 cups organic milk with 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder, a pinch each of freshly grated ginger-root and cracked black pepper, and 1 cinnamon stick. Cook until the milk comes to a full boil. Enjoy warm.

Variation: Use 2 crushed cardamom pods instead of a cinnamon stick. Add crushed jaggery, honey, or sugar to taste.

I have to confess that the thought of everything being turmeric yellow just doesn't appeal (never mind the taste) but it is also a problem for me in that my husband would NOT join in and I already have enough evenings where I have to deal with two meals! :roll: Can't face any more. :cry:

EileenH

7

Green granny ...... my friend did say that turmeric had quite a bitter taste and perhaps was better to use fresh! She buys it at a local Sunday organic market and actually gave me some to grate over food :roll: :roll: But did say powdered equally ok although more bitter than fresh and perhaps was an acquired taste :?

I have never used turmeric because not into spicy food ( I have Oral Lichen Planus) as it was detrimental to the health of my mouth...... my doc said that the one plus of having this steroid treatment is that my OLP will now not ( should not) give me any problems so have been eating all the no no's like chillies etc like they were going out of fashion! I know turmeric not spicy but is used in curries and the like and has the yellow colour.

So turmeric is something I am going to have to begin to use with caution until I find a way of incorperating it into my food, not hubbies! Maybe in capsule form?

If any of you lovely girls out there can help me in how to use this would be grateful

8

Eileen H you were obviously busy posting your post as I was writing mine! How is the taste of the tea?

Know what you mean re hubby not joining in....... over the many years we have been married he has been long suffering ( but he is extremely healthy and I keep telling him it is because of what I make him eat!) but some things he absolutely refuses to do....... :lol: :lol:

9

Afraid I haven't tried them myself yet - it was the post that reminded me about the recipes!

My old man is not particularly healthy but he had cancer 17 years ago, the chemo spoiled the taste of everything he ate at the time and most of those things he has since refused to eat (for me that is, if you gave it him there wouldn't be a murmur!). In the UK he eats sausages, pies, bacon and the like. With chips. Here he does eat about 3oz of steak or pork. With chips. His favourite dish is Wiener Schnitzel. With chips. :roll: :lol: He never eats vegetables or fruit. But then, neither did his mother, except for a dessertspoon of frozen mixed veg at lunchtime. She lived to be nearly 84 so it can't have been that bad a diet I suppose. I nearly died over Christmas in the south of Italy where he ate pasta with vegetables EVERY DAY - decided reluctance exhibited when I suggest it :roll: :wink: . And me? I love everything except liver and kidney - though I do eat haggis and love it.

However - the tea/milk drinks do seem a way of just you trying it without spoiling a meal if you can't take it. If anyone is interested I do have a couple of internet links for the recipes but I won't post them unless someone wants them or the post will disappear - I suppose I could send them to someone by a private message if you like.

EileenH

10

Hi again fiftiesgirl

I add turmeric to casseroles, risottos, pastas, soups, shepherds pies etc (don't mind if it adds colour if I know it's doing me good) and now you have a tea recipe from Eileen as well. If hubby is cooking I often have to remind him it's a spice.....he can be a bit liberal with adding things - if he's around when I'm adding wine to my cooking or brandy to my baking, he'll come and jog my arm :roll: although I can imagine a few of you will share his sentiments there! :wink: If your OLP doesn't take kindly to the powdered form then perhaps, like Green Granny the capsules would be best.

Have just looked up the Nori sprinkles you recommended - they sound lovely - I read that they're good for the adrenals (can be suppressed by the steroids) and also for the kidneys and that part really appealed to me as I only one kidney and that is not filtering out at 100%. Apparently, the Japanese Mitoku Nori is best, the Chinese variety being more polluted. If your friend manages to buy organic then that is an added bonues.

Not sure about a magnesium supplement for me personally having read up a bit about it but perhaps will rely on getting that from my diet - it's in many foods including wheatgerm, Brazil nuts, almonds, cabbage all of which I eat daily, plus I steam all my veggies and make gravy with the water so hope that I'm getting sufficient that way. You'd think I'd be so fit and healthy I wouldn't need to be on here at all! :roll:

MrsO

11

Hello Fifties Girl

Thank you for that It will take me a while to look into all of it I like Green Granny take the Tumeric capsules

My husband hates the smell of curry so if i started putting it on our food !!!!!!!!!!!!! He is a very healthy eater eats fruit and vegetables every day , loves salad , only eats small amounts of meat and the only 2 things he wont eat are curry and very strong chilli He was quite unwell after eating some very very strong squid in chillis in Spain once He felt he was having a heart attack so those 2 things I avoid cooking I hate liver kidney tofu (yuk) snails and am allergic to large amounts of onions I can take just a flavour of it If you think of all the recipes you have that start by saying fry off some onions !! you will realise it can be an issue when eating out

I am going to have sardines on toast for tea after all that inspiration !!

And look at all the other things on the internet tonite

Best wishes

Mrs G

12

My friend told me the Green Nori Sprinkles ( Japanese) were salty but I have just liberally sprinkled them over my steamed kale and they were not! Just added a 'sea' flavour and quite delicious :lol: ( Clearspring)

Thank you Mrs O for all the ideas to where to add turmeric.... did look and found some amongst my herbs and spices but out of date :roll: So will use the fresh I was given and then buy some powdered and use them as you have advised and see how I go.

Made me laugh hearing you talk about your healthy diet and not being on here.... exactly what I think as have always been aware of what I have eaten and chosen organic etc and been mainly vegetable and fish based with occasional meat and loads of salads, vegetables and fruit so to find myself with a second immune disease is not at all funny and to me points to it being hereditary :roll:

13

Hi Fifties girl and all.....like you I have always tried to maintain a fairly healthy diet as I was diagnosed with a wheat intolerance and allergy to eggs nearly four years ago :cry: .

The up-side of developing PMR and being on steroids is that I can now tolerate occasional ammounts of \"Proper\" wheaten bread...not every day, but just to have it every now and again is a real treat :wink: I asked a nutritionest friend why I could now do this and she explained that the steroids were suppressing my allergic reaction to the wheat, which obviously makes sense, plus the gastric protection tablets I take with the steroids also help 8)

I still can't tolerate eggs at all.....swollen lips and eyes & a VERY dodgy tummy...but I have learnt to live without them, though I still get VERY envious when someone in my company orders a Creme Brulee as I used to love them . I made the mistake a few months ago of thinking I could just have a \"little\" taste....not even a teaspoon full and boy did I pay for it :roll:....know better now!!!

I am not a great fan of turmeric, but I eat oily fish a few times a week and I love fresh beetroot...chop it into salads and it is great with goats cheese as it counter-acts the saltiness of the cheese brilliantly.....pity its sooo messy to work with...plastic gloves are a wonderful invention for beets :!:

I eat fresh pineapple several times a week as it is supposedly very good as an anti-oxidant & \"cleanses\" the system.....love the flavour too.

I am lucky in a way, in that I love my fruit and veg and have no problem whatsoever in taking my \"5 a day\".....my snack foods are always fruits & nuts as I'm not really a biscuit/ cake/ chocolate person.....I think this is probably because,unlike most Irish people, I do not drink tea (never liked the taste)....and most folk will have their biscuit or cake with a cuppa :wink:

Because I drink water, the piece of fruit or carrot stick just fits better :wink: Hubby on the other hand, has to be cajoled into venturing away from his \"Tried and tested\" veggies....\"celeriac, cabbage, sprouts....no way \"

Have tried over the years to get him to enjoy the merits of many different veg, but unless his mother had cooked it for him as a child he is still loathe to try anything \"new\".....I sneak things into stews and casseroles when he is not looking and he is none the wiser !!! He claims to HATE celery....but un-beknowns to him he has actually eaten it at least once a week in the past month :wink:

I always did this with my children aswell when they were younger...its amazing what can get \"hidden \" in a spaghetti bolognese\" :!:

The deviousness of mother-hood knows no bounds !!!

love to all, Pauline.

14

Oh Pauline your post reminded me of the times I would sneak brussels sprouts into Spag. Bog., and all the veggies I would liquidise in soup to get them down my kids! They never seemed to detect them unless they were actually in the kitchen at the time. It still works with my husband .

Interesting what you say about food, intolerances and steroids though, something to think about!

One of the joys when we visit our daughter in Ireland is the lovely bread - it brought back memories when you put \"wheaten bread\", - gorgeous. Yes, and the tea, though my son in law is a dabhand at \"Irish coffee\" as a nightcap. I always come back weighing a few pounds more unfortunately

Seriously though, I wonder about people getting more and more obese and how much illness is due to poor diet. Sadly, in this recession, the cheapest food seems to be the poorest, so I can't see the nation's health improving.

Happy eating, after all that, Green granny

15

Hmm

You have started me thinking about Soda bread now Pauline !!

I am not a fan of cakes particuarly but fruit scones !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love them and they definately do the best in Ireland

It is very true about the price of good and bad foods I cannot believe how expensive apples have become !! They were always the cheapest of fruits At the moment though all the supermarkets have offers on salads ( everyone on a New Year diet !!)

Hope everyone has a good day Off to my exercise class today Trying to remember to do my knee exercises every day as well Supposed to be doing them 3 times a day but thats not happenning but it is better than it was

Best wishes

Mrs G

16

Foods and diets. I am italian, and lived in a farm on the foothills of the Dolomites. Bought up on fresh home grown veggies, fruit picked fresh from the trees, when ripe, fresh goat s milk every day, fresh eggs, they had their own pigs, cows, chickens etc etc. Their vineyard to make their wine, walnut trees, hazelnuts trees, and in the large loft...they had silkworms :lol: :roll: ....my childhood was in paradise.....my old age is here...in ?....I was doing gimmnastics and became champion for high,and long jump and putting the shot.....Never had a serious illness, hardly ever a headhache or colds. :roll: As it has already been asked in this forum, oh why , why am I HERE? :oops: :roll: So, as someone else suggested : could it be genetics ? Or the consequence of having had some viral infection ? The \"lucky girls\" looking forward to the wonderful holidays in the sun, I wish you the best of all times, and please, when you came back, tell us all about it ! Promise. The ones that like me, for so many diverse reasons, cannot travel so far, I wish a VERY GOOD SUMMER with the SUN getting out and doing it's job ! I was so miserably depressed, and thinking of the holidays I could not have....I gave myself a treat :wink: :P and subscribed to my favourite magazine : Country Living 8) It was on offer at 50% discount ! At least I will have something to look forward to once a month ! 8) At the chemist they have mixed up my prescriptions.... :x :roll: and I am going to order double, so that I make sure not to run out of preds ! Awaiting results of blood for ESR. Hoping all is OK. Trying hard to decrease dose of Preds, from 7 to 6, but finding this drop hard to take the plunge, as I have lost my nerve and get scared I will get the \" TERRIBLE\" pains back. I do not think I could go through that experience again :cry: Hey ! The sun is trying to come out !....Miserable old sod!........ :oops: Take care ! :chick: love, Granny Moss

17

How come you lot have husbands who can be fooled that easily? Mine can detect disguised veggies at a 100 paces :roll: :lol: . I should have had the camera in Andria when he ate dandelion with pasta - it's gorgeous by the way if anyone has too many wild ones in the garden (that haven't been sprayed of course!). We get to cheat, supermarkets sell them!

Granny Moss - if you thought you could manage to get to Gatwick and take the flight to Innsbruck I could pick you up and bring you to the Dolomites. I live on the \"wrong side\" for you in Val Pusteria but it's only about an hour to Cortina from here. My husband goes over to Innsbruck regularly to work with someone there, it's about an hour and a half with the car. I'm sure the journey would be OK in small bites with a minimum of public transport.

And yes, you are quite right - there is a lot of evidence that most autoimmune diseases have a genetic association so it is likely a parent or grandparent's generation also had sufferers. I can't identify anyone in my parent's generation but there was someone on both sides of my mother's side of the family one generation further back who I am positive had PMR.

EileenH

18

Green Granny....You are so right about current diets and the increase in obesity, as Ireland and the UK seem to be taking over from the USA with this problem :oops: .

I was chatting to my Nephew's partner a few days ago ( a girl who is severely over-weight) and she remarked that her 13 month old was covered in chocolate as she had been eating cadbury's mini rolls. I have to admit to being quite shocked....since when is it acceptable to give that kind of food to a toddler :?: I know that I never gave any of mine things like that at such a young age and what they didn't have they didn't miss :wink:

I also read recently that our ambulance service has had to order a new fleet as they were having increasing problems fitting patients into the current models......where will it all end :?: We will need double doors into all public places and extra wide beds in all our hospitals :x and with all the money that we owe Europe we simply cannot afford it :cry:

Hope evryone has a good day. Love, Pauline

19

Pauline - I just heard some discussion on the radio that another contributor to overweight is the \"dietary advice\" that has been vogue for some years that several small meals is better for you than just 3 meals a day. Now they realise that that just makes your blood sugar go up and down like a yoyo and encourages the hunger pangs as well as making the calorie intake difficult to monitor. In the meantime, though, a whole couple of generations have got into the habit of snacking what seems to me to be non-stop. :roll: I might have given my 13 month old a tiny bit of a mini swiss roll to taste - if I were feeling VERY indulgent - but a WHOLE one? :roll:

One of the bigger (please excuse the pun :winksmile expenditures within the healthcare systems all over the western world is to deal with the euphemistically named \"bariatric\" patients - not just extra-size ambos, trolleys, beds and the obvious things but also operating tables and hoists for moving these patients to avoid the massive problem of injured staff. However - have you ever wandered round looking at many of the staff? I take a dim view of being told I need to lose weight by a practice nurse or (even worse) dietician who is themselves overweight. On the other hand, I believe it was MrsK who was once told by a junior doctor that if she lost weight her knees would give her less trouble - she asked her in pretty short shrift if she had a) read the notes and b) had any idea what steroids are capable of doing to your waistline??? Links to our discussion about docs with no bedside manner or even manners!

I also forgot the other bit that goes with the genetics aspect I mentioned before - PMR and many other autoimmune things also do seem to develop AFTER an environmental or viral trigger but they haven't any idea what it is yet or why.

EileenH

20

Hello \"Lovely young ones ! \" 8) Dear EileenH! What a fantastic offer !Bless you !I shall now, when I have to rest, close my eyes and imagine I am there, with you ! Thank you !But, it will stay as a dream... My travel days are over... I absolutely agree and have said so many times, that VETS are far more clever than doctors....not all the doctors,of course :wink: My pets, dogs, cats, and even budgies...were looked after very well. I also have noticed how many overweight nurses are there in hospitals ! ? ! :? I man I heard of, when he had to be taken to hospital (where he passed away) was so HEAVY..and LARGE....A window had to be taken out, to DRAG him through....I keep my eye on the scales, they have not said : One at a time, please... :oops: Not yet....Seen the Daily Express today ? It says : FORGET FRUIT,CHOCS ARE FAR HEALTHIER !!!!! :roll: Chocs ( Dark ) are heralded as the latest SUPER FOOD\" ? \"The discovery means cocoa beens meet the nutritional criteria needed for fruits to be classed as \"SUPER FRUITS! \" :shock: :wink: :idea: I have overdone it this time, and I am going to have a good lay down..... :wink: At soon...Granny Moss :kiss:

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