My Alternative RA Life

When I was first diagnosed I read mixed reviews on compression gloves helping Rheumatoid arthritis joint pain. Most things I read said they didn’t help like they did for traditional arthritis so I chose not to purchase any for a while. As probably most RA warriors like myself my joints are always the most stiff and painful when I first wake up in the morning so after one practically bad morning, my husband purchased me some anyways https://amzn.to/3jBxu5E . I tried wearing them for different amounts of time, different times of the day and this is what I found works the best.   1. First of all the seams on even the “seamless” compression gloves hurt my hands. My trick for this is I always wear compression gloves inside out to avoid compression pain and the “seams marks” they make on my hands.   2. Try not to wear them 24/7. I found that putting them on before bed and leaving them on for about 1-2 hours after I woke up was my sweet spot.   3. Only wear the glove or gloves o...

I know this isn’t some oh my goodness I’ve never heard of this type post BUT I do have some tips and suggestions for using Epsom salts for joint relief! While soaking your whole body in the tub can and does help, after a suggestion from my acupuncturist this is no long how I relieve my joints with Epsom salts. First let me say I mostly use the salts for my feet and knees because for some reason or another diet doesn’t appear to help them as much with an RA flare up.  For Feet and Knees:         Fill the bath with about 8-12 inches of hot water (as hot as you can make yourself stand to put your feet into).           2.         While the tub is filling grab two handle full’s of one of my go to Epsom salt favorites for joints  https://amzn.to/32DwZCl   https://amzn.to/3hsHQmv 3        Stir the water around with your hand or foot to dissolve the salts  4.   ...

I actually stumbled into Collagen for joint pain by complete accident. I had decided to drastically change my diet in hopes to relieve my joint pain so I was pretty much only eating organic meat, fruit and vegetables. This strategy took a long time to help with the immediate pain, which I was expecting from my research.  I was in pain right then and there so preparing 3 meals a day from scratch was not ideal. That being said I drank a lot of smoothies those first 6 weeks. After a while I started looking for alternative protein options (other then nut butter and avocados) for my smoothies and came across the grass fed collagen suggestion in a blog so I begun adding it to my smoothies. Within 2 weeks my swollen fingers were significantly less swollen. I chalked this up to the diet change and thought I was just lucky it worked faster for me then everyone else. Well after skipping my daily smoothies a few days in a row my fingers swelled right back up. I was crushed! What had chan...

    I was diagnosed with RA when I was 29 years old. As shocked as I was I had this disease, it all started to make sense! All of my odd discomforts and pain that I have learned to deal with most of my life but that was my normal. I have had “weak wrists” for a few weeks every year but I would just wear a brace and live my life. As much as I loved large purses my shoulder would hurt anytime I wore one so I switched to the worlds smallest cross body purse even though it wasn’t half as fun or stylish. When my knees started to hurt like they sometimes did I would take some extra calcium (I still can’t figure out how this helped back then but it seemed to). I knew if I didn’t sleep 10 hours a night I could barely function the next day. At one of my annual appointments my thyroid levels were off the chart yet I had never had any issues prior a few months later there appeared to be fine and then 6 months after that they were high again! I had a flair up 6 YEARS before I was dia...