Okay this might sound a bit woo (and a week or two ago I’d have agreed), but have you tried vitamin C?
Hear me out...
My sister, who is proper woo (anti-vax etc) has been banging on about high dose vit C for a while, but I’ve just quietly ignored and privately rolled my eyes.
About 18 months ago I developed really painful carpal tunnel in both hands after a sustained period of doing intense DIY work. It flares up all the time because I do a lot of gardening and DIY. In the last few months the pain and numbness wakes me up every hour during the night, so it’s been getting worse from lack of sleep too. I’ve been using ice packs and ibuprofen most days, it’s been agony. I’ve also had sciatica on and off for 18 months in my right leg.
About two months ago the knuckles on the ends of my index fingers went all knobbly and “witchy” - just like my Nanna’s. She has rheumatoid arthritis, and my mum has the knobbly hands too. Then a month later the tendons on my little fingers started to sort of slip out of line, and I had to flex my hands for ages in the morning to get them working again.
I was worried about it being RA (I also had several unexplained sharp pains under my ribs and in my ovaries - or that’s how it felt), so I called my mum to see if she has it too and what she’s done about it. She started on about the vit C (and some other woo stuff that I disregarded) and said that her knobbly fingers and lumps on her hands had gone since she started taking it.
I thought, hell, worth a go, the pain was becoming unbearable and really disruptive. I’ve been taking 1000mg vitamin C supplement every day for a week, and - I don’t know how else to put it - there’s no pain anymore. The knobbly knuckles are receding and the tendons aren’t “slipping” anymore. The sciatica hasn’t bothered me at all and all the unexplained pains have gone. It’s completely bizarre. I mean it literally changed within a couple of days.
I’ve been keeping a diary of all the symptoms, and last week it was a huge laundry list of things, while yesterday all I could write was “no pain, little bit of stiffness and swelling in the morning but quickly goes, very slight tingle still in end of right index finger”.
Obv I can’t say 100% it’s the vit C, this is not a controlled trial, but it’s worth a go, right?
I’ve also ordered a high dose turmeric supplement and fish oil, as both are supposed to be good for inflammation and RA. I’m hoping I can get these early symptoms under control and avoid having to medicate.
I have also been doing 16:8 daily fasting for a few months now, which is supposed to help with inflammation, as well as yoga, but honestly the biggest, craziest difference is since trying the vit C.
It’s very early days, and I’m curious to see if the turmeric helps further, as apparently some studies have shown it to be as, if not more effective, than ibuprofen, but without the side effects on the stomach lining.
I am not looking forward to admitting to my sister that she was right, if this turns out to be a long term solution. She and my mother take even higher doses I think, which I might try after a month or so of 1000mg and see what happens.