3 Polymyalgia Rheumatica Diets to Prevent Flares

Patients suffering from polymyalgia rheumatica go through the discomfort of muscle stiffness and excruciating pain. PMR sufferers say that the pain is so painful that it cannot be described or compared to anything. Because of this, some people with polymyalgia get depressed and seek help and support while coping with PMR symptoms. Usually cortecosteroid pills are prescribed by a rheumatologist to ease the symptoms.

What can you do to relieve symptoms of polymyalgia ? Besides the treatment, there are other ways to help relieve your symptoms. You can prepare and follow some diet plans, make lifestyle modification and manage your stress.

There are different diet plans for PMR that you can choose from or that you can combine. With the following polymyalgia rheumatica diet plan, you can help reduce your pain and inflammation.

1. Sugar-Free Diet for PMR

Removing excess sugar from diet can help you lose weight, reduce the risk of having diabetes, digestive problems, and relieve autoimmune conditions like PMR.

A high sugar diet can increase inflammation, affect the hormones, decreases your energy, and interfere in your mood and sleep.

A sugar free diet means you must limit all sources of extra or added sugars like soda, snack bars, and desserts. It is also a reduction of high carbohydrate foods that contain hidden sugars like grains and fruits.

Benefits of Reducing Your Sugar Intake

Sugar is needed in many of your food or dishes. But the reasons for minimizing your sugar intake outweigh the delicious temptation of having sweet treats such as:

• Low sugar intake can aid in losing weight and preventing obesity
• It lowers risk for having type 2 diabetes
• You gain energy with sugar-free or sugar-reduced diet.
• Less sugar stabilizes your mood.
• It also reduces systemic inflammation.
• It also lowers the risk of metabolic syndromes like atherosclerosis, hypertension and heart diseases
• It reduce the risk of having cancer because cancer feeds on sugar.
• It reduces risk of having a fatty liver disease

A sugar-free polymyalgia rheumatica diet is not so hard to do. You can do this by eating more fiber, add more protein to your diet, consume more healthy fats, eat sour, probiotic and fermented foods.

2. Gluten-Free Diet

If you have polymyalgia, you must avoid intake of wheat, and some other grains like barley, rye, and a cross between the wheat and barley which is called triticale.

A gluten-free polymyalgia rheumatica diet helps you to improve health and increase your body’s energy. Gluten is the only protein found in food that the body cannot digest.

This type of diet is usually advised to patients that are allergic to gluten. So here are some sources as a substitute to gluten:

• Fruits and vegetables
• Beans, seeds, natural and unprocessed nuts
• Eggs
• Lean and unprocessed meat, fish and livestock
• Low fat dairy products
• Amaranth
• Buckwheat
• Arrowroot
• Corn and cornmeal
• Flax
• Gluten free rice, soy bean and potato
• Hominy
• Quinoa
• Soy
• Millet
• Rice
• Teff
• Tapioca

Check out our updates on gluten-free diet including gluten-free recipes to help you reduce your polymyalgia flares.

3. Low-Carb/Ketogenic Diet

Ketogenic diet has many benefits. It is a very low carbohydrate and high fat diet. It involves a drastic reduction of carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat.

Carbohydrates, as we all know is converted to sugar or glucose. And sugar is the number one cause of inflammation!

Low-carb diet is an effective way of burning fat for energy. It also lowers the blood sugar and insulin levels.

There are four types of Ketogenic Diet:

1. Standard Ketogenic Diet – a very low carb diet, moderate intake of protein and high fat diet. The ratio is 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbs.
2. Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) is a form of Keto diet with periods of higher carb refeeds. For example, there can be 2 high card days and 5 ketogenic days.
3. Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD) – Using this diet allowa tha addition of carbohydrates around workouts
4. High Protein Ketogenic Diet – Quite like the standard one; only that it has more protein intake. Ideally, the ratio is 60% fat, 35% protein and 5% carbs.

This kind of diet also aids in helping patients to lose weight and also manage normal weight.

Foods to Avoid for PMR

Here are the foods to avoid if you have polymyalgia rheumatica:

• Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil like transfat and this can be found in fried foods and baked goods like cookies, pie crust, crackers, and pizza dough.
• High Fat Meat and Dairy Products which triggers inflammation like bacon, lamb steak, dark meat, poultry skin, whole milk, skin milk, low fat milk, and heavy cream.
• Low Fiber Starches worsens the symptoms of polymyalgia rheumatica as they stimulate inflammation. This can be found in white bread, low fiber cereals, and instant potatoes.