Weight Loss

Lydia was afraid to go out for a walk, because even if she made it down the stairs of the building to the front door, the outside steps had no railing, and then the sidewalk into town was downhill and very uneven. Her bone density was so low (45 percent lower in her spine than what you’d expect for her age) by the time she went to see Dr. John Lee that she knew a simple stumble could be disastrous.

Lydia thought 70 was too young to be limited like this, so when Dr. Lee suggested natural progesterone cream, she was ready to try it. She carefully selected a brand with an adequate level of active hormone, and saw immediate improvement. In just six months, she gained 8 percentage points. So she continued with the cream, and diet and exercise strategies similar to those in this book. She got periodic bone scans to monitor her progress, and despite a drop in density after another doctor gave her cortisone injections, over four years her spine was 38 percent denser than before she began using progesterone cream. She’s now just 22 percent lower than expected, a gain of 23 percentage points.

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- The goals of conventional treatments for all types of arthritis focus on relieving pain, reducing inflammation, maintaining normal function, and preventing deformities.

- NSAIDs are the mainstay of treatment for osteoarthritis, and they are also used in the early stages of rheumatoid arthritis. However, they cause a high incidence of stomach distress and ulcers.

- There is also worrisome evidence that the NSAIDs may accelerate the progression of osteoarthritis. In contrast, many of the natural treatments described later in this book may actually slow the progression of osteoarthritis, although this is not known for certain.

- The most important drugs for rheumatoid arthritis are the disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, the DMARDs. These offer the potential of slowing the progression of rheumatoid arthritis. However, most of them cause a high incidence of serious and often dangerous side effects. A new DMARD that has recently become available may be much safer.

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