Twas the Night Before the Paleo Restart

Getting a new website going has been quite a hassle. I used to have WordPress, but this newer version is not user friendly and has severely frustrated me.  Please forgive me for not having the site fully customized yet. And the date is October 12, not 2nd.

Still, here I am, ready to start again. Tomorrow. I wanted to get some things out to the world. It helps me be accountable to myself.

At some point, I am going to get my history up, all the meds I’ve taken, everything. In the meantime, here’s a very abbreviated version. I was diagnosed in 1996 and did very poorly until the end of 1999. I did well from 199 until the birth of my son in 2005, then poorly until 2011/2012 when I started an exercise rehab program in 2011 and Paleo in January of 2012. Paleo did me A LOT of good, but the exercise program did too. I reached remission for the first time in 2012. That lasted a couple of years, then my numbers were slightly off, but I still felt well, then I started doing more poorly, and in 2021, completely fell apart.

My son just went off to college (time for working on myself), and I’ve “failed” 4 medicines in the last 3-4 years. I talked to my doctor yesterday, and for reasons I’ll explain in the future, I can’t start a new medication for a few months. I made the decision to go very strict Autoimmune Paleo (where I started in 2012, but moved to somewhere in the middle of Autoimmune Paleo and “plain” Paleo). He supported this plan when I showed him the data that his clinic has kept on me for the last 18 years (good stuff!) We got a ton of new tests done, so I have good baselines. My tests were really bad, some worse than I’ve ever seen them. I’m also going to take some pictures of my hands, feet, eyes, track my weight, blood pressure, heart rate, etc… to track.  I will probably post some or all of them.

There are lots of good Paleo books out there that I read a number of years ago.  Here is my synopsis of the 2 Paleos (others may vary).

Autoimmune Paleo	Paleo
No refined sugars	No refined sugars
No dairy (milk from an animal)	No dairy (milk from an animal)
No grains (rice, wheat, corn, rye, etc…)	No grains (rice, wheat, corn, rye, etc…)
No beans/peas (includes no peanuts or soy)	No beans/peas (includes no peanuts or soy)
Eat lots of vegetables and fruits, as organic as possible/practical.	Eat lots of vegetables and fruits, as organic as possible/practical.
Eat plenty of healthy protein from good sources (grass fed beef, free range chicken, wild caught fish) as possible/practical.	Eat plenty of healthy protein from good sources (grass fed beef, free range chicken and eggs, wild caught fish) as possible/practical.
Limit to only healthy oils (avocado, olive, coconut)	Limit to only healthy oils (avocado, olive, coconut)
No nuts	Nuts ok
No nightshades (tomatoes, white potatoes, peppers, eggplant, gogi berries, etc…)	Nightshades ok
No eggs	Eggs ok

The version I had started with was Autoimmune Paleo (or AIP).  I moved in the middle, where I had added eggs and nuts.  Nightshades had to stay out.  I am going back to AIP.

My own personal RA rules:

Rule	Why
Eliminating/cutting back salt for at least 90 days.	Research here.  Caution: supplementing with potassium can be dangerous.  Talk to your doctor.  I am not doing this.  I am only cutting out salt.  For me, this means no bacon or sausage.  I got urinary baselines on this yesterday.
Juicing at least 2x/week	I think this helps dump nutrition into my body quickly and is something I was doing the first time and have since stopped.
Eating fish at least 2x/week	I should aim for higher, but am aiming for success, not perfection.  I sadly got a big burned out on fish (I was eating a lot of it).  I need some new recipes.  Fish is anti-inflammatory.
Kale or other high calcium leafy green	My bones need the calcium, and I have concerns about supplementing calcium.

Supplements: 

Yes, it would be best to get it all from my food, but I cannot express how poorly I am doing right now.  Many of these I am doing already.  Discuss this with your doctor before trying.

Supplement	Dose
Vitamin D3	4,000 IU daily
ZincI was low a few years ago when tested	50 mg 2-3 times a week
Methylated B complexBecause I am an MTHFR carrier	daily
FIsh oil	Daily
Vitamin K2	2 times per week
Magnesium glycinate and/or threonate	daily

Meds I am currently taking and, for now, will continue:

Medication	Dose
Prednisone	4 mg daily
Ibuprofen	As needed, usually 800mg/day total
Levothyroxine (I don’t have a thyroid)	100 mcg
Liothyronine (I don’t have a thyroid)	5-7.5 mcg (I was on 5, but was low on testing yesterday)

My 90 day goals:

Goal	Starting Point 10/11/24	Success Is
Normal Sedimentation Rate (marker for inflammation)	46	<20
Normal C-Reactive Protein (marker for inflammation)	26.9	<10
Able to exercise	Can’t do it right now	Start using pilates reformer effectively
Fibrinogen  Never had this tested before yesterday.  Can I break the trend?	493	<400
T3 Total  Thyroid hormone,  When this is low, my RA tracks worse in my data.	55	60-181
Potassium Random Urine	53.4 mmol/L	Higher
Sodium Random Urine	62 mmol/L	Lower
Weight	Will weigh tomorrow AM on home scale.	-15 pounds
Visible decrease in fluid in my hands and feet	Photos coming	Photos
Visible decrease in Thyroid Eye Disease swelling	Photos coming	Photos
Blood Pressure.  This was very high compared to my usual at doc’s office.  I may have been stressed.  Still, it has been going up and getting concerning.	Will check tomorrow on home cuff.	-10-20 on top number?
Heart rate	Will check tomorrow AM.	-5-10 at rest-10-20 in movement

So, now you know my rules.  My goal is 90 days, super strict.  I have an appointment in January to see how I am doing.  Whatever the results, I will make decisions then.  There is one speed bump in my plan.  I had an infusion of Rituxan at the beginning of September.  Although I was supposed to have a second infusion to make a “full dose”, one infusion was enough that my B cells are pretty depleted (per testing yesterday).  So far, I have not had any RA improvement, but it is still considered “early” and I could get some improvement from it in a few more weeks.  Since about 4 days after the infusion, I have felt markedly worse, a story for another time.  

For some comparison, these were my results in 2012 when I started Paleo:

Test	July 1, 2011	Feb 9, 20121 month into diet	Apr 20, 2012 3 months into diet	Feb 14, 201313 months into diet	Feb 20, 201425 months into diet
Sedimentation rate0-20 is normal	35	28	13	16	17
C- Reactive Protein0-1 was normal when these tests were done	2.8	1.3	0.94	1.0	0.7

I have records for these tests back to 2006, and none were normal before this.  To the best of my knowledge, I never had any normal ones from 1996-2006 either.

Please feel free to drop a line in 

Facebook: MomsWithRA (an open/not private Facebook page)

Facebook: Paleo Moms with RA (a closed Facebook group)

I would appreciate any encouragement and am happy to answer questions.