Tart Cherry Juice for post-op pain

[tinksmom 0]

My lap-band nutritionist recommended this to make it possible to cut down on NSAIDs and other anti-inflammatories. I have Sjogren's syndrome and mild RA so have to deal with inflammation and nerve pain constantly. Tart cherries, according to articles on the internet, have both cox1 and cox2 (think Bextra, Vioxx and Celebrex) inhibitor properties, and enough of them to make it noticable. I was sceptical but tried it anyway and I woke up the next morning without my usual back pain. My husband had taken a glass and the gout pain in his knee and footwas much better. Still wondering about placebo effect, I told several friends about it and they reported that it worked on them as well. Our grocery store now has problems keeping it in stock as the grapevine has worked it's magic. 8 oz is 140 calories so you have to keep that in mind, and I add sugar because it is very tart, though you can use artificial sweetener. I am posting this because it helped a lot with my post-op pain. After a glass I could feel the swelling around the port was smaller...and it hurt less. It got worse after the juice wore off so I drank another glass. It might or might not work for others so I'm passing it on. It has to be the pure "tart cherry juice", not sweet or dark cherries, and not a juice mix. On the net you can order concentrate or capsules to mix with other food which would end up costing less.