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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Natural Remedies or Enbrel ? - Is there a cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis?

Well I ended off the last post by trying to cut gluten out of my diet to see if it will help with the inflammations and that I would stay clear of Enbrel, since I read of a number of lawsuits, suing Enbrel for causing cancer.

The truth is, I couldn't last 2 days without giving myself another shot. By day 2, places that haven't hurt since 2005 started to flare, like my collar bone and shoulders, in addition to my usual wrists and feet, making it hard to lift myself out of bed.

I couldn't bare the flare ups to see if cutting out gluten would work. Also, since I have a chubby 3 month old baby, I rather be able to pick him up and feed him, than be actively flaring up and bed ridden while testing natural remedies.


Though Cutting Out Gluten does make sense. The year I was diagnosed with RA, I remember being very unhealthy, living off pretzels and coffee while attending full-time school and working nights. High stress, unhealthy diet with excessive gluten, and genetics (my aunt has RA), are probably all common factors contributing to this auto immune disease.


Cutting Out Dairy?
Has any one watched "The Corporations" documentary? It is well worth watching.
From the video, I'm considering cutting out dairy as well since milk production companies inject cows with hormones to produce more milk. Many cows then develop infections (milk ducts get blocked) and hence are also injected with antibiotics. When milking cows, the puss from the infection can get into our milk, along with the hormones and antibiotics. YUCK! The US started to do this in 2002. I'm a type to have cereal with milk for breakfast everyday! I was diagnosed with an auto immune disease in 2005. Perhaps there is a link,  because... get this....  my RA went into remission when I was in China for 4 months  !! Weird. - The milk there tasted very different.

If you are a mom, please check this out: Check out: http://www.babycenter.com/0_bovine-growth-hormone-and-milk-what-you-need-to-know_64389.bc


Next action: continue taking Enbrel, cut out gluten, cut out milk, take multi-vitamins.


My next refill of Enbrel, may not be approved by the government, which means I am responsible for $1,500 which I do not have! So, I will have no shots. So I will update you soon.
:)

Jo

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Enbrel Nightmare?

I saw a commercial for the first time about Enbrel.  At first, I was actually excited to see a commercial for the drug I was using; but that quickly faded when near the end a soft spoken lady calmly lists all the possible side effects... cancer..   What? Cancer? Really?

So I went home and googled Enbrel and Cancer to see what came up. Well I found this link:
 http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/enbrel-120/   comments from 2008 - 2011 of people who have lost a loved one while taking Enbrel.  What are the chances?

Its quite the dilemma. If i don't give my self my weekly Enbrel injections, I flare! My dose was due today and I skipped it. I could already feel soreness throughout my wrists, fingers, shoulder and feet.
Time to talk to my Rheumatologists and do some serious praying.

In the meantime, I will try cutting out gluten as I read that this helped someone else with RA.

Keep you posted and please pray for me.

Xoxo,
Jo