pineapple and swelling

[annie]

about five years ago i had a bad reaction to a B 12 shot that had been recalled but i got anyway. they thought i had a heart attack but it was just palpatations. my feet and legs swelled so that i could not put on shoes. still have palpatations if i take B 12 by mouth or sublingually.

summer before last i had a blood clot in my left leg, deep vein thrombosis, from the ankle to the groin. they put in a screen. i am a bleeder, yes girls can be bleeders, so they can't give me blood thinners. how a bleeder got a blood clot is another question.

now my left leg, the one with the clot, is still so swollen that i cannot get any shoe or sock on it. found some men's sandles that will go over it, like walking in snowshoes but they keep me off the sidewalk. cannot find any socks large enough, including diabetic ones.

someone in my sewing group suggested eating pineapple to take down the swelling. i have been eating it for three days now and it does seem to be helping. it is, however, seriously upsetting my stomach.

so questions. is this something anyone ever heard of or am i just imagining that it is helping?

what in the pineapple is working? can i get it in a supplement?

would appreciate any other suggestions as to bringing down the swelling so at least i could get a shoe on. it is getting cold and is going to start raining, need something besides sandels!

[uvamomb]

Hi,
I'm so sorry you're going through all this. I have not heard about pineapple helping with this problem, but do know that it made my daughter break out in hives for several years whenever she ate it.
Have you called your doctor to let him know how swollen you are? Does he have you on bedrest? What are they doing to get rid of the clot?
It sounds like you need to be seen by your doctor or at an emergency room asap. Blood clots can be very serious, as you know. Is it deep or surface?
I guess what I'm saying is I'd need more information, but strongly believe you need a doctor.
Please let us know what your doc says and how things are gonig for you from day to day.
Take care of yourself.
Hugs and Prayers,
Kathy

[orthomolecular]

Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, an inflammatory. Digestive enzymes might help but I think you may be low in b6. I have a b6 deficiency and have had swollen ankles many times. B6 seems to also play a role in blood clots. When you take b12 you must also take folic acid and vitamin b6. If you are already taking b6 with the b12 then try increasing that dose or try the p-5-p form, which is what really helped me when my ankles swelled up. I happen to think that the synthetic form of b6 stopped working for me at some point and taking digestive enzymes helped that. (The p-5-p form is the more active form which does not require enzymes to work.) That might explain why the pineapple is helping your ankles.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

contains serotonin. It is typically withheld prior to serotonin urine testing.
(for carcinoid).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v188/n4745/abs/188147a0.html
And other foods contain serotonin as well:
Certain foods contain substantial amounts of serotonin. Furthermore
some medications may cause the release of serotonin and may lead to
altered levels. Patients have to be abstained from such serotonin rich
food (e.g. avocados, bananas, coffee, plums, pineapple, tomatoes, walnuts)
as well as some medications (e.g. aspirin, corticotropin, MAO inhibitors,
phenazetin, catecholamines, reserpine, nicotine).


When swelling is only in one place due to a medical incident/surgery, etc,
it is often not easy to fix. If the swelling is bilateral, yes..it might respond more quickly to a supplement.

The ingredient in pineapple which is an anti-inflammatory is Bromelain.
It may work for you.

Are you using a diuretic? for reducing the swelling? or for blood pressure?
If so you may be losing thiamine in the urine, and low thiamine presents with
swelling typically.

I will be difficult to reduce swelling that is caused by veins that have problems handling the return of lymph from the extremities. Certain blood pressure drugs also make dependent edema worse= Norvasc, Procardia, Cardizem are examples, and may be additive to a pre-existing edema of venous origin.

[annie]

well, i was trying not to post too much information. let me do more.

rose and mrsD may remember the B 12 allergy problem, both were very helpful when it happened.

short as i can make it:

i was born with seizures, mostly absence. i don't take AEDs. i was crippled by a drunk driver in 1958, lost the siatic nerve and the main vein in my right leg. walk with crutches, right leg always swells.

have a fibroid tumer in my uterus.

year ago august i had a seizure in the middle of a very busy street, fell flat on my face. thought i was ok, got up, went to a concert. two days later started hemmoraging. they blocked the artery to the tumor.

kept having whitouts, light headed. in september walking to bus, passed out. went to doctor who called the paramedics. i had a clot blocking the left leg vein from the ankle to the groin. very well organized clot. when they did the ultrasound on both legs they got all excited that i don't have a vein in the right leg. no body ever believes me when i tell them this stuff. they put in a screen. cannot give me blood thinners because of the tumor bleeding.

cannot take anti inflamitories because they make me bleed. i am missing about half of the clotting factors, have enough to get me thru a normal time but surgery poses problems. i was being seen at the hemotology clinic at County/USC medical center, but then the professor studying me left (Dr. Carmel) and now no one believes me. this is a constant problem for me because i have so many weird things go wrong with me.

it has now been a year and a half since the blood clot started. left ankle has been swollen to about twenty inches around all year. doctor is afraid to mess with me because i have bad reactions to just about everything. i don't got to doctors much because of bad reactions. she says to stay off of it and keep it elevated. i want a life.

i have been sleeping about 18 hours a day, every time i sit down i go to sleep. B 12, i know. doctor says 200 is fine. B 12 pills give me palpatations.

i don't take blood pressure pills because they make me very confused. tried several, with and without diuretic, all bad. my pressure is pretty good usually, under 130/80 generally. she wants me to take drugs, i won't. the thiamine may have been what was going wrong here.

all of the serotonin rich foods upset my digestion and some give me hives if i eat much of them, tomatoes especially. i can't take asperin because it makes me bleed. all anti inflamatories make me bleed.

i do take a standard walgreen's multivitamen, which has not done anything strange to me yet.

have been eating canned pineapple for five days. upset stomach but the swelling has gone down quite a bit and i have lost ten pounds. tonight i got a sock over the left foot. not sleeping so much and feel better, which of course could be entirely wistful thinking.

today i bought a bunch of pineapple juice. you said fresh pineapple? not sure where i would get fresh pineapple in november, or what to do with it if i did. i live alone and throw out enough fresh food to feed a small country. i don't drive because of the seizures, can't walk much because of the legs, and am getting old enough so nothing works well.

but i do enjoy my life very much. i go to college two mornings a week, weave and sew two afternoons at the senior center, and have a lot of friends. so i am not willing to sit around and watch the swelling go down, especially since keeping it up does not do much good.

can i buy bromelain?

[orthomolecular]

Only raw foods contain enzymes. I am not sure if there may be some small amounts of enzymes in the canned pineapple or the pineapple juice. Usually foods heated over 118 degrees will not have any enzymes left.

Yeah, fresh pineapple may be hard to find in some areas. But today most produce is available almost year round because it gets shipped in from other countries. It can also be a pain to peel and cut up pineapple if you do find it. But sometimes you can find it sold cut up already in the produce section.

If the pineapple helps then I would think taking digestive enzymes would work for you. You say you can't take anti-inflammatories. I would assume that means either prescription meds or OTC meds. The meds work by a different action than enzymes, with meds being mainly suppressive. Digestive enzymes, especially proteolytic, the ones that break down proteins, do have anti-inflammatory properties. Digestive enzymes work the same way your bodies own natural anti-inflammatories work.

Since you have so many health problems I am reluctant to give you advice. But the enzyme nattokinase has been shown to reduce blood clots but will not inhibit necessary clotting. Nattokinase has fibrinolytic activity. Fibrin is what causes the clotting. This enzymes breaks up the fibrin but does not inhibit this action to cause your blood to thin or excessive bleeding. Your blood will still clot but will not form dangerous larger clots that cause problems.

As we age and because we may eat a lot of cooked foods our pancreas can not produce the necessary enzymes we need. So taking digestive enzymes can be helpful. But these enzymes are not meant to help digest foods, but to digest other things in your bloodstream or in other parts of your body. These enzymes are meant to be taken away from meals, on an empty stomach, so they get into your bloodstream. But digestive enzymes will break down clots like the way they break down proteins into peptides. Enzymes are so important and overlooked.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

It contains a warning for those with clotting disorders:

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsSupplements/Bromelaincs.html

This is a common supplement and can be purchased at any good
health food store or online at www.iherb.com
But I would get physician supervision given your medical issues.

Histamine in foods also causes hives or tingling/burning.
Here is a list of histamine containing foods:
http://allergies.about.com/cs/histamine/a/aa071000a.htm

Some people find using a H2 blocking drug orally like Zantac, Pepcid, or
Tagamet helps with food allergies. Zantac type drugs block histamine in
stomach. Often they are used with antihistamines (like Benadryl) with food reactions.

[annie]

hum. pineapple is on the histamine containing list. it does not make my stomach happy but the problem is going away. i do eat a lot of cheese with no problem. as a child both tomatoes and strawberries gave me hives but that has calmed down now mostly.

what really gave me hives was quinnine, which i was taking for leg cramps. just have to hope i never get malaria.

i have reservations about the university of maryland site, which certainly wouldn't be crackpot. i do drink cranberry juice every day, otherwise i get kidney infections. lots of people i know in chairs get them all the time unless they drink cranberry juice. what i am drinking is sweetened regular ocean spray or market brand, not the unsweetened, which i can't imagine anyone drinking twice. nasty stuff. UM says it must be unsweetened, that sweetened fruit juice makes things worse. i know from many years experience, both of myself and friends, that this is absolutely not so.

they also say that the pineapple must be fresh and uncanned. i have been eating canned pineapple. of course the brand i am eating, from the 99 cent store, may be processed differently than what they are saying, it is from china. it is definitely making a major difference in my swelling. i am sitting here wearing socks, for the first time in more than a year. granted they are mens large, but i could not get them on five days ago. so something is changing.

i am concerned about their warning about bleeding. i do have problems with clotting, both too little clotting and too much. on bad days i can get just a tiny nick that will bleed for several hours. the piercings in my ears are my early warning signal for meds, blood starts dripping out of them, very upsetting to people sitting next to me on the bus. picture a white haired old lady on crutches with blood dripping out of her earlobes. the only anti inflamitory i can take is indocin.

so it looks like i should start small and titrate up, if it is possible to use that term with reference to pineapple.

a problem may be that the supplements at iherb are all 500 mg and the maryland site is recommending 80 to 320 three times a day. assuming that i should start at the lowest dose, wondering if i can cut these pills, my goodness, in sixths.

well, i have a gallon of pineapple juice. will drink that and see what happens, while getting myself to the health food store. plenty of them around, but i can't drive and getting anyplace is always a problem.

i really do appreciate your help. i know where to come!

[nopain]

Canned Pineapple has very little bromelain. Fresh Pineapple has more but is not really a great source. It's my understaning most is extracted from the Stems - which you would never eat.

Wobenzym is a well respected and researched enzyme formula containing Bromelain http://www.wobenzym.com/ with an ENTERIC coating. This is important!!! If you want to use Bromelain as a digestive enzyme that's good, but if you want to get it into the body to fight inflammation it needs to pass through the stomach and into the intestines. There are other companies producing enzyme formulas. But Wobenzym and Vitalzym are probably the best known.

30 years and 100 million users behind it. You can search Google and find the company, research studies, and Doctors who support the use of Systemic Enzymes. The side effect profile is virtually non existant.

I supplement enzymes heavily and have had very good results. No drug has ever done for me what they have done so far.

Read Dr. Garry Gordon's research - it's a big site but well worth the time. (I have no affiliation with the site).

http://www.gordonresearch.com/

Serrapeptase and Nattokinase are worth researching seperately and are often used in formulas to improve circulation. Serrapeptase is amazing in that it eats away dead tissue.

CoQ10 has plenty of backing as well.

Try a systemic enzyme formulation for a couple of weeks and see if you don't feel better.