Getting The Inflammation Down – From Folklore to Reality

Today's Guest Post comes from Susan Marque, who knows more about nutrition than anyone I've met, including several dietitians!

            Pain gets your attention.  It’s supposed to.  It is being in pain that will cause actions to happen to get out of pain.  My painful story started with extreme atopic eczema, and almost ended when I almost died twice from complications of eczema with pneumonia, and then mononucleosis.  I had various other aches and pains such as knees that didn’t seem to work, but after doctors threw up their hands and handed out prescriptions like candy that didn’t give me much relief, I searched for alternatives.  My cure came from changing my diet.

            The whole story of how I cured myself is too long for a blog post, but what I learned about diet began making the most sense when I started taking classes from several Japanese teachers.  The only thing the medical doctors had said was that nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers) can cause inflammation.  Dr. Gary Wenk, a brain surgeon who decided to write a book on food, said inflammation is the real underlying cause of pain, and reducing that inflammation, obviously reduces the pain. He agreed with my folklore learnings, that diet can make all the difference (cherry juice reduces pain, and ginger plasters can help carpel tunnel syndrome …and so many other things…). Dr. Alan Remde, also agreed and told me, “You are way ahead of the curve.”  Many ailments can be relieved with dietary fixes, when you know how food works.

            One of the basic tenants of those Japanese teachers was not to overfill the stomach.  It has been said that you live longer, and healthier from that practice alone.  Overeating is not just about weight, it can create inflammation that will increase pain, especially for conditions like carpel tunnel syndrome.  Cutting out (or down) the refined foods and emphasizing whole grains, beans, vegetables, a little pickled food for digestion, and sea veggies.  The minerals alone in sea vegetables can help bring inflammation down.  Fruit was something I thought of as a healthy snack before I was told that it is a treat food, and it shifted into being more of a dessert item.  Treats were things that created inflammation and fruits went into that category since they are mostly sugar, and acid forming despite being on many sites listed as alkalizing.  (Apparently at one time, foods were burned and their ash tested alkaline because of a few minerals left in the ash, when the reality of consuming fruits is they are acid forming.)  The true test came as I experimented with my own body.  I found my new diet of eating foods in a whole state to begin with, gave me more energy, my skin cleared up in two weeks and remained clear from then on, and my pain cleared away.  I’ve seen it work with everything from carpel tunnel syndrome to cancer.  Getting free of pain is worth giving up desserts that I loved, or having millet for breakfast instead of a brioche.  It was definitely worth letting go of medications and embracing the plant kingdom instead. I’ve been free of pain now for over twenty years and I’ve marveled at how my health has slowly and steadily gotten better with each passing day.

Susan Marque got her M.F.A. in creative writing from The New School, writes for magazines, television, and is currently working on a memoir. She is also a healthy food expert, loves both food and tech, and all things photo related.  Her photo art has sold in Beverly Hills and London. Follow her blog at http://susanmarque.blogspot.com/ where she regularly writes on nutrition and health.