Hello All! I'm a recent pericarditis patient and I have been reading all the threads here to glean some much needed information. I'm 55 and had been in pretty good health for most of my life with the exception of dealing with stage 3 breast cancer in 2000. I have always been very active and ate healthy foods. Never smoked or drank so I pretty much had a handle when the cancer came along. After losing my father to lung cancer and my brother to brain cancer, I was ready say good bye to my family and just accept what might have happened. God had other plans and the stage 3 cancer was removed and after radiation I was considered in remission.
14 years later I'm still here now facing this troubling and elusive diagnosis of pericarditis within. Just 3 years ago, I had a cardiac ablation to set my heart rate to normal after having A-fib most of my adult life. The rapid heart rate was just getting more and more persistent, so my cardiologist recommended that I have the ablation to return my heart beats to normal. It worked with no complications,... or so I thought. The definition of inflammation in our bodies is any tissue, joint or bone that is inflamed by a foreign substance, illness or injury that is not given adequate rest in which our bodies can self heal. My doctors diagnosed me with systemic inflammation and pericarditis just two months ago.
I'm not one to take a ton of medications due to all the threads that I have read on this site and them not working for anybody, so I told me doctor there has to be a way for my body to heal itself since the drugs don't seem to work for anybody. Now the "foreign substance" that I eluded to above made me ask the question, "What is in my body that is causing inflammation, since all other diseases have been ruled out?" FOOD! The wrong foods for me that I have intolerances to. How did I find this out? A simple, but expensive blood test.
My systemic inflammation has come from the foods that I have been eating, which totally shocked me since I have been eating clean, healthy organic food for the last two years. My gastro doctor had me take a test called MRT test, which measures by blood sample, what foods that I have intolerances to that can trigger inflammation. Come to find out that there were over 30 foods, and additives including some medicines that were causing my inflammation! The biggest one is WHEAT and I was tested for Celiac's with a negative result. Foods like spinach, broccoli, cucumbers and others that I have been eating all my life.
So my doctors are trying a different approach to my pericarditis by bringing down my inflammation through what I eat, rest and light exercise. My cardio doc had done a cardiac ablation 3 years ago for arrhythmia and that's when the inflammation started, although he won't admit to that procedure being a possible cause, I think it was the
open door to a cascade of systemic inflammation due to injury somewhere along the procedure. Either way, foods that have contributed to my inflammation are now being removed from my diet and just after 6 days of eating a whole new way, I feel so much better.
Pericarditis is no doubt inflammation. Why not treat the inflammation and not the symptoms to end the constant reoccurring inflammation? If I have an
open wound that gets inflamed with infection, my wound gets treated so my body can fight off the inflammation. Does that make sense? I think our doctors are missing something here in what we are eating that could be causing a whole host of health issues.
Our bodies a like chemical labs; too much caffeine, you can't sleep. Too much sugar, you get hyper, break a leg, you can't walk. I may be way off base here, but I'll let you know in a month of my progress in fighting this pericarditis (inflamed pericardium) and see if it works. It's got to be better than
open heart surgery.
Hugs
MsAnnie
Edit - link removed - Sorry, Kitt
Post Edited By Moderator (stkitt) : 4/9/2014 3:53:57 PM (GMT-6)