Quote from Armin on December 1, 2021, 6:45 pm

It had been 5 months since I started (June 21st 2001) with a near zero Vitamin A diet. Symptoms initially flared in March, 2021.

I am updating because the last 2-4 weeks have been especially interesting/significant.

Right now, I would estimate that my symptoms are ~95% resolved/reduced. The symptoms that I have been trying to resolve are mostly joint/tendon/fascia/reticulum soft tissue in nature. The joints involved are of the following: Jaw/TMJ, cervical spine, left/right elbow, left/right knee, left/right ankle, left hip.

Having all of these joints affected all at once was severely limiting and exhausting just to make it through daily life. I never had hip pain/limitations before and I can now empathize with how messed up it makes doing everyday activities a pain in the ass, let alone coupled with the other 4 major lower body joints. My elbows have slowly been getting better but the right knee/left hip have been especially stubborn. Ankles fluctuated but wasn't the focal point of my discomfort but still limited motion/caused pain. Jaw pain and neck pain is practically gone as well. Neck was so bad I couldn't turn or bend left or right without severe pain at certain time. So bad that I started to think I had blood clots in my carotid arteries. It was just the muscles but it ran just along the carotid lines.

My inflammation/pain likes to play musical chairs, ebbing and flowing from being dominant in one area and going to another and around and around it goes, slightly diminishing over time. It feels like a big tease. I have had definite improvement for the past 2 months but the last 2-4 weeks I really started to notice the significant improvement.

 

I'm not going to be dogmatic and say what exactly changed it but these are the things that I have been doing the past 3 months.

Diet (99%) consisted of beef muscle meat and black eyed peas (I prefer the taste).

Water

Glucuronolactone ~1600mg/day

Olmesartan 160mg/day

I used NAC ~ 1200mg for about 1.5 months

I used activated charcoal off and on (back on the past few days).

BMI= 22.5

 

The past month I added:

Cigarettes ;). (cessation from March 2021(when flare started) -August 2021) 

Purified reverse osmosis water (strangely, this addition is the most recent addition that came right before my big improvements, may just be a coincidence). Felt like crap for a week or so for some reason. I'd experienced this in the past as well.

 

I can now drink coffee without feeling like absolute garbage, which has not been the case for 9 months.

Haven't had any skin/eczema reactions for months as well. The winter usually brings it on. Fingers crossed.