While I've heard of people who lose their joint pain or fibro on GFD, my experience was the opposite. This is a long story, but it has a happy ending.

When I started eating GF over 2.5 yrs. ago, I was really delighted to "lose" my life-long IBS. No more days wasted, w/incapacitating spasms.

But within a month or two of starting GFD, I got an arthritis flare. Since I have a rag-bag of diagnoses in that dept. since childhood, I didn't give it much thought ... until it didn't go away. But I'd been under a lot of stress (teenagers) & my autoimmune stuff does tend to flare under stress. However, this soon turned into the worst flare I'd ever experienced. Needed to use a handicapped scooter for shopping at times.

Then about 3 mos. into GFD I did something stupid & injured my shoulders. FWIW, that "hundredweight" deal on shipping by FedEx, it doesn't all have to be in one box. SMART people figure out the deal is for multiple boxes adding up to 100 lbs, all going to the same address on the same date ...

After many months the shoulders still weren't healing, the nasty arthritis was continuing, and I was starting to experience diffuse soft tissue pain throughout my body. Doc found the tender points, so fibromyalgia was dxd. Eventually I convinced doc to give me a trial of thyroid hormone, based on low free thyroid hormone levels. Synthroid was helpful, to some extent. Better with it than without it, but things still weren't great.

In '06 I had episodes of pain, stiffness, & swelling severe enough to keep me homebound, unable to manage stairs. Needing a walker at times, and a cane quite often. I felt ... 82 years old, not 52. In the worst spell, activities like dressing, getting out of bed, standing up from sitting -- were major challenges. It wasn't that bad most of the time, but my activity level had really fallen, and I was learning it's difficult to socialize when you can't make serious plans.

I'd found a few triggers for my flares, chemicals & foods that tend to suppress thyroid function. That was a small improvement -- I thought. But by Dec./06 my DH & I had decided that I should try to find a rheumatologist I could *tolerate* -- a depressing thought. Do such creatures exist?

Then I stumbled upon a You Tube clip where, I think it was GF Girl was holding up a huge baker spud, & saying "THESE are gluten-free. I eat a lot of them." And I got to thinking ... yah, that sure is something that's changed ... I'm eating about 3 x more potato than I did pre-GF, if you include potato starch in baked goods.

Google pulled up Norman Childers & his nightshade theory. www.noarthritis.com. Apparently it's been know by vets for a looong time that grazing animals who survive nightshade contam in feed or field, usually end up with severe arthritis. Directly attributable to the nightshades. Childers, being a horticulturalist working w/vets on this problem, started to connect the dots in a very personal way when he himself was dxd w/arthritis, 45 yrs. ago. He's now 96 years old, still running his website & small business, selling books on NFD. I've rec'd a number of emails from him, and also a hand-written letter. Makes ya wonder ... does he just have great genes, or is that decades of NF diet at work?

Nightshade-free diet means no potato, tomato, eggplant, tobacco (+ avoid 2nd hand smoke), no peppers of the spicy or bell type, including dried spices like chili powder, cayenne, paprika. Also,nonorganic soy must be avoided since currently 80% of the soy in the USA is GMO, some w/SNPs from petunia (a nightshade).

HoHo, those spicy ethnic dishes we'd gravitated to, making GFD interesting for our teens? Loaded with peppers. No more creamy dairy sauces? Sub tomato sauce dishes. And how 'bout that yummy Greek roasted eggplant spread ... I could see that there were a number of things, besides potato, that had undergone sig. change when I went GF.

In a last ditch attempt to avoid the Rheumie & his poisons, I spent nearly 3 weeks "baselining," -- eating my regular diet, while morning & eve "scoring" every red, swollen, or painful joint/tendon/muscle group on a 0 - 5 scale.

After I had a baseline & range of daily values, I began eating NF. Spices in commercial sauces, salad dressings, & sausages were the main pitfall. But I was able to pretty easily adapt.

Within 72 hrs. of strict avoidance of nightshades, the swelling in my hands started to go down. After a month NF, the skin on my hands & fingers has deep, baggy wrinkles. Kinda like a person who loses 50 lbs too fast might get under their chin. I'm once again able to wear my wedding ring.

I've made great strides in pain reduction & am slowly increasing my activity level, hoping to get back some of the muscle I'd lost with inactivity. My fibro muscle & tendon pain is not gone, but it is much less than what it was. Shoulders, hips & knees have improved, but not as dramatically yet as fingers & wrists.

I know I have "factors" beyond nightshade sensitivity. Barometric pressure dips, exposure to "bugs," stress (the kids are still at it), and "overdoing," cause flaring, as in past. But mini-flares. Both my day-to-day average pain, as well as the flares, have been taken down several notches.

In 20 days of baseline, my "best" day was 11 finger joints swollen & painful. Last week, my worst day was 2 finger joints, touch of swelling, not painful. The numeric scoring system also demonstrates a significant effect from the NFD. It may sound corny, but I'm thrilled with my progress: * able to use can opener & garlic press * no more pain using cptr mouse & typing * able to go up & down stairs to basement 3x/day *able to scrub entire back (shoulder ROM) * able to experience good feelings from my muscles when I'm using them. Each of these little things represents another piece of my life -- back!

If you ever hear someone complain about arthritis or fibro being worse on GFD, please alert them to the possibility of nightshade sensitivity.