Not sure how convinced you are on what you eat can ease your joint pain. My friend who was badly twisted her right knee and had ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) has had success through exercise and eating sensibly to get rid of her knee pain. According to her, the doctor had advised her to go for surgery to rebuild the ligament tissue, luckily she hesitated then after taking into account the risk involved.
She told me you must be willing to experiment and to have a certain amount of patience to achieve the desired result. In her journey to regain her joint health, she had adopted eliminating (i.e. avoiding certain foods for a set time to see how your body reacts to it) and Mediterranean diet approach (i.e. by eating fish, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats like olive oil and whole grains) coupled with joint-friendly foods, nutrition and exercise, she remarked her joint pain is mostly gone.
If you are having hip, knee and other joint pain, eating strategically will help ease the pain and minimize the damage. A hallmark of joint pain is because of the inflammatory response in the joint and its surrounding tissue. By eating strategically, you are uncovering what foods can trigger the chronic inflammation in your body and what foods that have anti-inflammatory compounds that make you feel good. As suggested, it is good to keep a journal to note down when and how things change in your body and pay attention to what you eat and feel and then adjust from there (note: foods that trigger inflammation can include gluten and casein, and additives such as aspartame and MSG.)
Unlike anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin or ibuprofen which give you pretty quick result to ease your pain, the anti-inflammatory compounds found in foods are in much lower doses. This means non-drug treatment will act more slowly than medications but they are safer and without the risk to degrade your joints and can also prevent to trigger a host of other problems over time.
From the aspect of good health, inflammation is not totally bad as it is the first stage on how our body immune system defends the invasion from bacteria and viruses and how it triggers the repairing of damaged tissue. But for people with joints pain, the inflammation process has gone awry causing white blood cells attacking healthy tissue. During this awry process, the continued release of nuclear factor kappa beta (NF-Kb) and cytokines proteins, including prostaglandin will cause swelling on elbows, ankles and knees. This also resulted the cartilage became roughed and cracked leading to joint pain and other joint related problems.
Best,
Tan Kok Hui
Nutrition Made Simple, Life Made Rich
