First: Arthritis Interrupted.

DON”T BUY THE BOOK!

A man (or team? Who knows with these guys?) calling himself Jim Healthy has a great website for people with chronic ailments like type 2 diabetes and arthritis.  His recipes on My Healing Kitchen  are to die for – and quite simple.  Halibut (or any fish, meat or tofu) marinated in green tea…..  He and a Dr Sinatra have put their names to a book called Arthritis Interrupted.  They maintain you may not need a joint replacement if you follow their food and supplement ideas.

The Arthritis Interrupted website had me inspired.  There are great free downloads on it.  I am not usually taken in by advertising hype but something struck a chord with me. Whoever wrote this site is a master advertiser.  Even now I find some of his other products desirable.  But I will not do business with these people again.

I found the site about 6 weeks ago  On Feb 5th.  I am due for a knee replacement mid April.   I did not take pain killers or supplements when I found the site.  It was 10 days before my first shopping trip of the year.

I thought the website so good, I splurged and ordered the book for $35.00

The only supplement I had was Bromelain, a pineapple extract that someone had given me but which I had not tried.  I immediately took some between meals as suggested.  Within 3 days I had a knee the size of a football and pain like I had never suffered before.  I wrote to Jim Healthy asking if others had suffered the same way, but no reply.

I waited for the book, and waited and waited.  On Feb 22nd, I receive an email from the company saying they had shipped it priority mail.  That was 2 and half weeks after I ordered it.  I checked my credit card info: sure enough, they had billed me for two items, one apparently the book and the other the priority mail – total over $74.00.  The really annoying thing was that they had the gall to charge for priority mail but waited so long to ship it.  I wrote and complained – no reply.  5 weeks after I bought the book, it arrived.  It had a cheap glossy cover, but the inside was simply a computer printout.  The content was mostly a rehash of the free downloads.  It came with a CD.  That contained only the free downloads.

There are also inconsistencies with the information.  MSM is a painkiller that should be taken with meals, otherwise it causes stomach upsets..  “Jim Healthy” (no wonder he does not use his real name) says this in one place; he also says you should not eat 3 hours before bedtime; then he says to take megadoses of MSM at bedtime.

He got most of his info from much better books, The Arthritis Cure and Maximizing the Arthritis Cure by Dr Jason Theodosakis.  (At $0.01 each used from Amazon.ca you can’t go wrong! ) The following comment shows the difference between these comapnies.

I cannot take the arthritis miracle-cure, glucosamine as I am allergic to shellfish. Dr Theo was advertising a joint supplement containing glucosamine from other sources.  It also contained “full RDA Vit C.”  I am unfortunately sensitive to commercial Vit C or ascorbic acid (which is in many foods, even organic).  I did not understand what Full RDA meant.  I wrote to Dr Theo and he replied at once saying he was sorry but he advised me not to buy his supplement.  I sure wish I could take Vit C – I would have bought a ton of his products.

On my shopping trip I did buy supplements that “Jim Healthy” suggested and also changed to a full anti-inflammatory diet (I didn’t have to alter much as I haven’t eaten sugar or processed food for years.)  And I have to say it worked quite well although I had to give some supplements up because of stomach problems.  I am also making my own glucosamin/chondroitin supplement with cartilage-rich bones and eggshells a la Jim Healthy – fortunately I have local sources of grass fed beef and chickens that run around.  I still have knee pain,  but most of the inflammation is under control.  I guess people are supposed to follow this routine for 3 months before they see much improvement and my operation will come before that, but with luck I can keep the osteoarthritis that is also present in other joints at bay.

So was I ripped off at having to pay $74 for this info?  Actually, all together it was probably worth it.  It certainly gave me a new way of looking at dealing with arthritis, even though that information is in other places and if I’d known, I would have gone there.  The website, My Healing Kitchen, has great food ideas and I will continue to peruse it.  The big quarrel I have with Jim Healthy and co is their sloppy business practices.  I will certainly never buy anything from them again.