costochondritis : Message: Reposting my research with corrected data.

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Corrected the mineral recommendations at the bottom. They should have
read "percent" and not "times" RDA. Changing the webpage as well.
Great reason to always "double check" what you read. :-)
Sterling....

My 30 plus year battle with Costochondritis
 

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And how I finally controlled it
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This is the bulk of my personal research into the possible cause and
beneficial treatments that I have used to
essentially control my costochondritis.
 
My troubles with this disease started for me when I was at the age of
17. Had just come off one of many strep throat
infections that I seemed to get each year and had just finished a
course of antibiotics for the strep infection. That
is important I think as bears on a possible cause to this disease in
others that I will get to later in this text.
 
As usual my symptoms started with the same as most folks. Soreness in
the chest ribcage, stiffness, and sharp pains
that would come and go. Over the years this increased to at one time
of the other most of the symptoms attributed to
Costo. Shortness of breath, stabbing pain in the chest, symptoms
similar to what are found in mild heart attack,
constant soreness of the ribs and especially the sternum.
 
Fortunately for me, at the time these symptoms didn't last long in
enough force for me to seek any treatment for them as
once heart trouble, lung trouble, etc. was ruled out most of the
problem had gone. What remained was a constant low
level soreness especially in the sternum. Since this was the early
70's and no internet, I just wrote it off to a
personal "oddity". :-)
 
Anytime anything or anyone touched my sternum region with more than a
light touch though was still sore. Symptoms other
than that would flare up from time to time in mild enough form that I
never sought treatment for them. Continued to
attribute soreness, popping of the ribs, and such to over work or over
strain is usually flared up after some sort of
hard work, or harder than normal play, such as water skiing.
 
It was not until I developed other more major health problems in the
late 90's that I started having some real troubles.
I was found to have Celiac Disease, which while well known in most of
the world, is relatively unknown in the U.S..
Celiac Disease is a major intolerance to wheat gluten, or any other
gluten containing grain. This includes barley, rye,
etc. Rice, corn, and some other grains do not have gluten and are
totally safe.
 
I include the info on Celiac as my research into Celiad is what
eventually led me to relieve my Costo. When you have
Celiac, any intake of gluten in foods (which is darned near everything
you can buy in this country already processed)
causes the microscopic "villi" in your small intestine to start an
immune reaction that makes your body attack them and
severely damage them. In normal healthy individuals these small villi
look like microscopic hairs. They are what
actually absorb the nutrients in our food including vitamins and
minerals, and most of the rest as well. When they are
damaged as they were in myself from gluten intake all sorts of health
problems crop up. I suffered from huge problems
with acid reflux, heartburn, stomach pains sometimes severe, digestive
problems from failure to properly digest food,
and assorted problems that come from what is also essentially
malnutrition. This is odd because I was eating very well.
Not just in quantity, but had gotten on a health food kick that had me
eating nothing but whole grains and lots of them along
with veggies and fresh unprocessed meats.
I think that it is this sudden increase in wheat and grain consumption
that caused the symptoms to come to the surface.
Folks can either be born with celiac and looking back on it I am sure
that I have had it all my life, but with reduced
symptoms. It can flare up into severe symptoms at any point in life
and that is what happened to me. There is a school
of thought that also says that folks can "develop" this condition or
disease at any point because of the stress put on
the human body trying to deal with gluten, which is something that we
don't have the genetic capacity to properly deal
with. That includes "all" of us and will give a link to more info on
this at the bottom of this.
 
After discovering that I was Celiac positive by removing all gluten
from my diet I started to recover. Most folks can
recover most or sometimes all of their normal intestinal functions
after a year or two of remaining totally free of
gluten intake. That takes some doing but finally figured out all the
things to avoid. There are lists available
updated and some major fast food chains as well have "gluten free"
lists on their nutritional websites.
 
I regained my digestive functions, most of my strength, and most of my
health after that by strict diet as well as
taking some vitamins and just eating right. Also avoided dairy as
that too can cause a similar reaction in Celiac
patients. Once you are off dairy you can often go back to it once
intestinal functions return to normal and that worked
for me as eat dairy now even better than I did before as used to have
problems with dairy that were just written off to
lactose intolerant. While I can still have that if I eat too much, I
no longer have them in the same strength. Thank
Goodness!!
 
I had a few years of no major problems until I had moved some heavy
furniture and was doing some house remodel work.
Worked myself way too hard one day and next morning woke up to find
that I was in terrible shape. Costo had flared up
(though I didn't know Costo even existed at that time). I was sore as
heck, had spells of shortness of breath. stabbing
pains as I moved, loud popping in the ribs upon sudden movement, and
some swollen spots especially at the bottom of the
ribcage. My sternum was especially sensitive and painful. Upon
researching pain in the chest on the internet I
happened to come across links on Costochondritis. That was exciting
to me as found out that this all had a name. Usual
doctor medicine did little good as evidenced by all the posts from
others here in this group regarding some very strong
and different pain therapy treatments. I could not afford at the time
very much usual medical treatments so was
determined to use traditional natural stuff if at all possible.
 
While doing research I came across such things as black cherry juice,
ginger, tumeric, cayenne pepper, and a host of
other natural remedies. Of all these the black cherry juice seemed to
work best for me as within an hour of drinking
some of the juice diluted with some water I had "some" relief.
However that only lasted a few hours and if I drank
enough of this stuff to stay "somewhat" painfree was going to spend a
fortune. Black Cherry juice is expensive as heck
if you are going to drink it 24 hours a day. :-)
 
Around that time I was already on this group and along with others
posting info on such and getting info from others. I
came across info on "nightshade foods" and arthritis which arthritis
and costo are very very closely related in scope.
Nightshade foods for those who don't know are from a specic plant
family that includes potatoes (except sweet potatoes),
eggplant, tomatoes, tobacco, and several others. They contain
different levels of what are known as "alkaloids". These
are compounds that are toxic to the body and while normally don't
"appear" to cause problems with people they can cause a
whole host of troubles that usually don't get connected with them.
For one they can cause calclum and other minerals to
leach out of your bones and other parts of your body and redeposit
where they aren't wanted. You can research the
problems with nightshade foods yourself by typing "problem with
nightshades" or such on any major search engine on the
internet.
 
I won't go into all of the problems with them here except to mention
that some severe arthritic like problems can come
up from them. I realized at that point that a huge portion of my diet
was nightshades. Potatoes in baked form, chips,
fried, etc. Also was eating a lot of tomatoes in tomatoe sauce on
rice pasta and rice.
 
What was recommended for folks suffering from such symptoms was to
remove all nightshade foods from their diet. I decided to give that a
try. Takes about 2 weeks
for the majority of the alkaloids to remove themselves from your
system and you start to feel better. Worked for me in that I could
definitely tell a difference after a little
over a week off the nightshades.
 
All this sounds great, but I was still having problems. Removing the
nightshades though, did give me some real relief and allowed me to get
back to doing more than I had
been for quite awhile. All was still not right though as I realized
that while after clearning out the nightshades, I was still having
some very serious joint pain in my chest and shoulders
and my sternum was still sore. What the nightshade removal from my
diet did for me was help with the shortness of breath and the full
time inflammation of my
ribcage. I could ride in a car again without hurting and also move
some larger items around without a lot of pain. Still had the
clicking and popping though.
 
Further digging around on the internet back to researching arthritis,
I came across a book called "The Road Back" by Dr. Brown. Turns out
that he was a pioneer researcher into
arthritis starting back at Johns Hopkins (I think that was it) back in
the 30's and continuing up until his death in 1988. He had a theory
on arthritis that he later expanded to include
all arthritic conditions and immune diseases as well as lupus, ms and
some other neurological and arthritic diseases. Starting in the
1930's he and some other colleages in research discovered that viruses
and some bacteria can mutate if not completely killed off by our
immune systems into mycoplasmas. They are a type of life form that is
somehow in between a virus and a bacteria.

 
Dr. Brown's theory at the time (1930's) which was difficult to
actually prove with technology back then, was that these mycoplasmas
would hide in the body in joints, tissue, or wherever.
They would release small amounts of toxins as our immune systems
slowly worked on killing them off. Because they were there worrying a
wart on our immune systems on
a continual basis we were developing an actual "allergy" to the toxins
released when some of them would die off. This is known in medical
terminology as the "Herxheimer" effect.
That says that killing off bacteria and viruses causes a release of
toxins when they die that might be compared to those released in dead
bodies or animal carcasses as they decompose.
These toxins are poisons to our system. 

Dr. Brown said that our allergic reaction to these is what caused
Rheumatoid Arthritis, which was the specifc disease that he was
working on at the time. He said that at some point
all folks that eventually get Rheumatoid Arthritis had been exposed to
the virus that causes Rheumatic Fever. Whether they had a severe case
of it or a mild one that virus never totally left
their system even though they might appear to completely get over it.
It would simply mutate to a mycoplasma and hide in the body tissues.
Oddly enough it didn't have to hide in the tissues
that actually became inflamed as could hide anywhere. Often did hide
in joints though. Since antibiotics were just coming into existence
in the late 30's with Pennicillin and WWII interrupting
some of the research it wasn't until the later 40's that he was able
to do something about this. By that time Tetracycline had come on the
market. Tetracycline was totally different from any
other antibiotic on the market at that time and for some years as it
worked differently than any other 

Most have heard about the super infections of recent vintage that are
caused by overuse of antibiotics. The fact that use of antibiotics
for an infection that don't completely kill it off can cause it
to mutate into a super infection that no longer is able to be killed
by the original antibiotic used on it. Hence the infections turning
up in hospitals around the globe from time to time
that resist treatment. Similar to what Dr. Brown found. He found
that you could kill off the mycoplasmas in the body by using
antibiotics. However the way you had to do it was to
give very small doses at very odd intervals, sometimes days apart.
Couldn't do that with normal antibiotics though as you would activate
the herxheimer effect if you killed them off too fast
which is what would happen with full doses, and create resistance if
you didn't give enough. That is where the Tertracycline came in. It
could be given as much or little as the patient could stand.
In other words he would start a patient off on Tertracycline and as
usual they would actually get worse at the start because of the
Herxheimer effect releasing toxins that would further
create the allergic reaction causing the arthritis. If they got too
much worse he would simply lower the dose and space it further out.
Takes up to a year and sometimes longer to complete the treatment. 

What stopped this from becoming the course of normal treatment for
arthritis is Cortisone that was released in the early 50's. He said
that it was like a sledgehammer coming down on arthritis
research because most all the "funded" research changed course and
folks believed that it was a lack of cortisone that was causing
arthritis. He knew otherwise though and continued his
research along his original line. Giving an arthritis patient high
doses of cortisone seemed like a miracle as most everybody immediately
got better. It wasn't until later that the danger of
this came clear with bone destruction, organ damage, etc.
 
Dr. Brown continued his research and eventually developed a course of
treatment that has cured hundreds if not thousands of folks of
Rheumatoid Arthritis. He eventually came to the belief that
essentially the other immune system diseases were all caused by the
same process. His mantra was that there is "no such thing as an auto
immune disorder"!!! What actually does exist is
an allergic reaction that the immune system is fight against that
causes lupus, and other diseases that are often referred to as "auto
immune" diseases.
 
I continued on this line of research because I think that the facts
point to chronic costochondritis as being essentially the exact same
immune allergy as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus as in our case it is
inflammation of the "joints and cartilage" of the ribcage. Now if you
remember the part about the toxins in the mycoplasmas causing the
reactions of arthritis then more toxins can
aggravate this. The alkaloids in nightshade foods for example are
already known to cause a very similar reaction to the mycoplasmas in
the human body of some folks. If we are
actually infected with mycoplasmas from some previous strep infection
or rheumatic type infection then we were already setup for this to
happen at some point. For some of us might
be an infection trigger like I think it was with me, or could be an
injury from accident that caused the initial inflammation that your
system wasn't able to overcome. Add to this consumption
of all sorts of toxins in our foods. Who hasn't eaten a lot of
nightshade foods in their diet?? Very few of us I suspect. They are
in many of the processed foods that we buy in the
grocery.
 
Now not everybody is going to have the same exact sort of exposure or
trigger and also might not be as completely sensitive to such. There
is another area of this that I found that had a big effect on
my treatment as well. That is the food additives particularly
sulfites. They are naturally occuring in some foods such as grapes
and wine and are added to essentially everythning you buy to eat.
This includes even some vegetables that are often washed in water
containing sulfites at the produce facility. Because it is illegal to
"add" sulfites to salad bars or any produce that is
expected to be consumed raw they rinse it with regular water at the
end but it doesn't all come off. Sulfites are added because they
"kill bacteria" and preserve the foods. You see sulfites listed
on the labels of hundreds of foods in the store and sometimes they are
not even listed because their level is below a certain point. Now in
the old days before antibiotics existed sulphur based
compounds were used to kill infections. Sulfites in our foods are not
exactly the same as used years ago (and still used as sulpha drugs)
but they do have the same effect. "Killing" bacteria!!
Now from what we learned above you can see how adding anything in
large doses that kills bacteria will also work by proxy on mycoplasmas
hidden in our bodies and can aggravate the
effects.
 
It is the removal of the nightshades and then attempting to limit my
consumption of sulfites that is about to wind up what I did to stop my
costochondritis from running my life. That is not one key
addition though and will get to that in just a moment. I know that
everybody is thinking "how in the heck am I going to live the rest of
my life without nightshade foods, and avoiding as much
sulfites as I can". Great question and the fact is that you probably
won't have to long term. While I have Celiac and have the highly
restrictive lifetime diet that requires, Celiac itself is just a
problem that I have that helped me find some important parts of this
research. All most would have to concern themselves with to attempt
to recreate my results is to remove ALL nightshade foods and
as many sulfites as they can for the time it takes to get back to
normal. Then "most" folks can probably reintroduce nightshades in
moderate quantities. Even with all the damage to my
system over the years from Celiac, I have been able to return to
eating nightshades as long as I don't eat too many, or eat them
everyday. Sulfites such as in wine still can cause me to flare
up again after drinking any wine, but never enough to slow my life
down because of the one final thing that I have done!
 
That is adding some very specific minerals back to my diet. Further
study on this led me to the fact that all our modern food supply is
grossly lacking in the minerals that used to be
widely in our diets. There is a long list of minerals that we are
often lacking. Vitamins for years were my "tool of choice' for
supplementation. However we have all heard doctors
claiming for years that we don't need to take them because our diet is
fully supplied with vitamins all the time. Well turns out that to
some extent they are probably right. My studies in this
has led me to believe that the reason that we often feel somewhat
better when we take large or supplemental doses of some vitamins is
that because of a lack of minerals we never
properly absorb the ones that we do get. There are some specific
minerals that I found were the key to helping our condition. First is
calcium. Not the cheesy forms that have all sorts of
additives, but basic calcium from coral, rock, or some other direct
source of calcium. 200% of the RDA is plenty. Next is Magnesium.
Calcium doesn't work without it. 100-200% the RDA for that
as well. Calcium is needed for all the electrical functioning of our
body and virtually every process in our body requires it to work. Now
for us with Costo I take 75-100 mgs of Molybdenum everyday.
Now most of you are probably saying "what???" Yes Molybdenum is one
of the essential minerals that is usually not added at all, and if is
added in only limited quantitties to mineral or vitamin supplements.
It often requires some looking at health food stores to find it, but
several good sources out there. Solgar is one of the brands that
makes it in a "stand alone" version. There are others as well.
What the Molybdenum does that none of the others do is it "counteracts
directly " sulfites. It is needed for our bodies to actually
"metabolize' sulfites that we injest. Now sulfites are a recent
addition to the
human diet as before the last few decades we only consumed them in
some foods naturally. Now they are added in massive quantites in
almost all we eat. Great example of this is ALL
fast food and frozen french fries have sulfites added to them. They
do that to keep them from browning while in storage before they are
cooked. Look on the bags in the supermarket to see
what I mean. Don't eat fries, you ain't off the hook as like I
mentioned above they are in almost all processed foods in some form or
other. You can browse the search engines
for all the different names and forms that it comes in.
 
To sum this up we very possibly (no research that I know of has
actually been done specifically on Costo for mycoplasma reduction)
have mycoplasmas from a previous infection, even back to infancy that
has lingered in our bodies and resurfaced at the time that we
developed this through either further infection or injury, or simply
stress or some other health problem. Then once our allergic reaction
developed we aggravated it with the foods we are eating and the lack
of essential minerals in our diet has further worked to keep us from
healing. That is simply what my personal research and
results have led me to believe.
 
The Road Back Foundation, which has continued Dr. Brown's research and
most importantly his treatment have expanded their treatments to
include all sorts of diseases. At some point I would
seriously consider going through their therapy to attempt to remove
the mycoplasmas from my body and give a complete "cure" to this, but
in the meantime I have essentially arrested mine
by using the above combination of first removing all nightshades,
limiting sulfites, and mineral supplementation. I have since been
able to add back most of the stuff I eat as long as I take minerals
and don't
go overboard with any of the aggravating toxin foods and sulfites.
 
Don't believe it will work for you?? Takes some "real" willpower to
do the first part. Nightshade foods (and you don't have to take my
word for it) require "complete elimination" for weeks at the start as
any you eat during that period returns you back to the start and you
have to wait weeks longer to notice results or get them out of your
system. Like I say it takes a determined will to hold on
long enough to know if this will work for you. Do your own research
into Molybdenum and sulfites and you will find the same readily
available on the internet. It is claimed that you can take up to 500
mgs per day of it without any problem, but after following the advice
of quite a few sources realized that 75-150 mgs is plenty to do the
job. Once you start off at the higher level you can wind up tapering
off later.
 
Why do I feel so sure of the mineral supplementation?? It is because
that after doing this for over a year I "stopped" taking them for
almost 5 months before symptoms started to come back in enough
strength to get me back on the minerals again. All the while I was
continuing to eat "some" of the offending foods and sulfites as I had
while taking the minerals. I believe that until we get rid of the
mycoplasmas that are probably causing our condition this is a good
course of action. I'm certainly not a doctor, or medical
professional, but am simply echoing info I have found readily available
and you can easily research yourself. The minerals should cause no
problems with any medication that I have been able to find or side
effects in quantities I used as was very concerned about that myself
before I attempted to take any of them myself. However do your own
research into this yourself as like I said I'm no doctor. I am
somebody that seldom has a problem with this though after 30 plus years.
I really really hope that the rest of us can benefit from some of this
and that you can get your own relief from the restrictions that this
costochondritis
disease places on your life.
 
Links to the Road Back Foundation are:
http://www.roadback.org
You can read all sorts of info on their site and Dr. Brown's book
which has been reprinted many times is available in most major
libraries as well. I am going to add other stuff to this later on as time
permits and I find my records, but wanted to get this online as soon
as I could so that the rest of us might have a chance to test this
out. Please let me know if any of this helps you and to what extent by
either emailing me or posting your results to the group website.
 
Thanks for reading and hope this can help somebody besides myself.
 

Sterling
 
mohavedesert@...

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