About Her Lifestyle

Feel a little stiffer than normal this morning when you hopped out of bed? Didn’t quite have that usual spring in your step? Yeah, could be just that you’re getting older…or it may have been the tomatoes you ate last night—or the bell peppers, potatoes, eggplant….

Turns out these nightshade vegetables (and others) may cause inflammation of the joints in certain people. Nightshade is the common name given to over 2,500 species of plants. The scientific name for this family is Solanaceae, and the plants in this group all contain compounds known as alkaloids—that can cause adverse reactions in some people when they ingest them.

Simply put, I have psoriatic arthritis and I ache like Hell when I eat tomatoes—really!

Found this out by accident when my arthritis flared up a while back. The pain cut through my meds like a hot knife through butter. Thought I’d have to increase my dosage (something I really don’t want to do), but as I was researching another project I saw an article about how you can find relief from arthritis pain by cutting out nightshades from your diet. That’s when it hit me that I’d gone overboard on pasta in a spicy tomato sauce twice in the three days before my arthritis flared up. Over the past week I’ve been cutting out nightshades, one by one, and my arthritis is feeling better than it’s felt since my diagnosis in October 2010.

Taking it a step further, there’s a list of foods and beverages that have been reported by arthritis sufferers to trigger flare ups: Red meat, dairy products, foods that contain lots of sugar such as chocolate and sweets, flour made from white wheat, salt, alcohol and caffeinated beverages.

Wow! that only leaves us with chicken, fish, vegetables (not nightshade), fruit and water. Go figure! Now, instead of increasing my meds, I’m wondering if by eating right, I can get off them completely.

What about you, have you ever cured an ailment or illness through diet alone? Leave us a comment in the section below.