Functional medicine to treat RA?
My mum (85) suffers from RA. For many years we tried a lot but nothing helped so far.
Heard about functional medicine some weeks ago, do you have any experience with it? Can you recommend it?
Thanks a lot,
-Peter
Hi Peter! Kudos to you for taking care of your Mom through so many years.
It sounds like you're interested in alternative treatment options. I'm sharing a couple of threads that might be helpful for you if you haven't seen them already!
More of a primer on alternative treatment options for RA: https://rheumatoidarthritis.net/alternatives-therapies
More community members will likely share their experience if they have it, but the above links can be a good starting point for you! Welcome to the community!
Take care,
Reggie (RheumatoidArthritis.net Team Member)
Thank you very much Reggie - seems like there is an ocean of recommendations. found book from German Dr Eva Hasenbeck, sounds like an interesting approach, maybe you heard about it too? Best regards Peter
Thanks a lot - not easy to keep an overview.
I received link below to Dr Eva Hasenbecks book, sounds interesting to me, maybe you‘ve got a view on that topic too?
Best regards Peter
https://drhasenbeck.kartra.com/page/fLH201
Hey Pete.
Autoimmune diseases are tough especially because we all react so differently to treatments.
It took me a really long time to find a drug that worked for me. I was initially on NSAID treatments which I do not recommend. I was young so I didn’t do a lot of research and it permanently affected my digestive system to wear I’m completely intolerant to those drugs now and need to take anti acidic drugs.
I trailed with biologic drugs from 2013 until 2019 and with such a long list that to be honest I probably couldn’t even name them all. I was on TNF blockers like Humira and Remecaid for a while but I developed neurological symptoms. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after I developed those symptoms that I found out that a percentage of people do you get neurological complications after using drugs like that.
Finally in 2019 I started a drug called Rituxan and it was the first drug that worked for me. It’s expensive but I feel better that I have in years. Sometimes certain classes of drugs won’t be effective for certain people. Possibly looking into treatments in a different class like JAK inhibitors or others.
It’s also important to mention that all these drugs have side effects, so it’s worth doing your research and reading drug trial reports and creating your own pros and cons list.
I don’t know if that answers helpful that’s just my experience but I hope it helps.
