I think after the first few years of trying those treatments and not having a great deal of success with gold either, we, we moved to another area and next consultant changed, wanted to change the gold on to another strong anti, anti rheumatic treatment. I think it was then I started looking at alternative therapies.
Everything under the sun, diets, acupuncture, you name it I tried it and to begin with, I thought I was having a, a measure of success. I believed in, believed in the alternative therapy wholeheartedly, I really thought if I progressed with it and stuck with it and did it properly that I would actually be able to get on top of the disease. I did that for several years.
Some of the, some of the alternative therapies, required that I stop all allopathic treatment, all drug treatment, so for about 18 months, I was not on any anti-inflammatories or painkillers. With some of the treatments I could carry on with the drugs. At the end of the day I, it didn't stop the destruction of the disease. I have it fairly aggressively and it's sort of worked its way through my joints and did an enormous amount of damage.
So then went on to joint replacement. Still trying to stay with a healthy lifestyle and a good diet, and still trying things that were suggested to me.
I think, I think if I'd just been diagnosed now I would have launched myself into all the alternative things, right at the very beginning, just in case. You do hear of people finding things that work. Different things work for different people. And I think, bearing in mind that the drug therapy can't cure you and it can have some bad side effects that you, you can't lose anything by, by trying these things.
And, and some of them have health benefits, most of the diets are, are fairly healthy for you. I think probably if you can, if you can have the self-discipline to, to give them a really good go I'm sure some people do benefit. I often ask myself whether I, I tried hard enough or whether I should have tried sooner, whether I would have had more success. |
