Hi Ballin!
Welcome to the forum.
THIS: improvement off Wheat, white rice, alcohol and sweets."
plus
THIS: swollen and sore joints
plus
THIS: "Probiotic helped the most"
Possibilities:
1 - Classic signs of yeast/ fungal overgrowth. The sugary and simple carb diet feeds yeast/fungus tremendously. The probiotics can help keep yeast/fungal overgrowth in check. The y/f generally originates in the GI but can grow up the throat and cause the weird swallowing issues or soreness.
2 - leaky gut, which can be caused by damage from yeast/fungus that literally drills roots into the mucosal lining. Gluten and the over-processed grains an chemicals like glyphosate can also cause damage.
This damage can allow fecal matter, undigested food, toxins, etc. to seep through damage in your mucosal lining and enter the bloodstream, where your immune system comes upon it an says, "wooaah, you're a foreign object" and starts to overreact and cause autoimmune symptoms like joint probs.
3 - gluten sensitivity and the positive response to better diet and probiotics is unrelated to joint issues.
4 - Lyme
5 - all of the above
Depending on how much sugary foods, simple carbs, processed foods and alcohol you were consuming or other factors, my bet is on #1 with the likelihood of #2 and maybe even #3 too.
You might want to look into Lyme - we encourage all new members to read the New to Lyme? thread at the top of the page - it can help you determine next steps and other possible symptoms of Lyme and possible coinfections to consider or eliminate. And the very last post has a TON of info about
yeast/ fungal symptoms and treatment.
Definitely continue on the path you're on - if you do have 1 - 3 above it is essential you make progress on healing your GI because 70% of your immune system IS your GI! So gut health is critical in keeping your immune system dominant over all pathogens - not just Lyme... as well as staying dominant over Lyme. I believe MOST people carry the Lyme microbe but a healthy immune system can keep it suppressed.
Hope that's helpful - if not, keep asking questions!
-p
Post Edited (Pirouette) : 11/27/2017 10:20:26 PM (GMT-7)