I happen to find herbal medicine fascinating. Homeopathy is NOT herbal medicine. Homeopathy is 200 years, old, herbal medicine is at least 4500 years old (in China and Japan), and probably older. In Oriental countries many of these are still used today. (Also, China and Japan have a lot less cancer, heart disease, and alzheimers disease than the UK and especially the US!)
There are various herbal medicines that work for many ailments. But go about it in a smart way.
Also, don't discontinue the pre-existing meds right away. That way you have no idea if the "new thing" does anything! Make changes one at a time!
Vitamins that are reputed to help with arthritic things:
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin K (you need vitamin K1 AND vitamin K2)
(Start right away)
Herbs for autoimmune diseases:
- Olive leaf
- Maidenhair leaf
(Ask your doctor before taking as some herbs can interact with some pharmaceuticals)
My understanding is that the most common anti-rheumatoid arthritis drugs are antifolates (i.e. anti cancer drugs). They are also abortion drugs (since they stop cells replicating).
It would surely not be ideal to be on such a drug your whole life. You would always be more sickly and have a worse immune system. You would never win wimbledon. Can't be great for having babies either.
The advantage of herbs, especially for a disease caused essentially by chronic inflammation, is that they have the potential (this is not a guarantee) to treat the disease at its root.
This is vs. synthetic drugs (e.g.aspirin, paracetemol), which have a tendency to treat symptoms and not the underlying cause. This is partly because they tend to be single isolated compounds that have a single chemical formula: e.g. C9H8O4 for Aspirin. Often they can do this very very potently. That's what's good about them.
On the other hand, herbs contain thousands of thousands of compounds (there is no chemical formula for Olive or Maidenhair), and the mechanism of action, while it can often be hard to decipher, can actually go deeper.
Herbs also have fewer side effects (most often none), wherease synthetic drugs *almost always* have side effects. Just look out for drug-herb interactions as these can be dangerous in some cases.
In diseases like cancer, the symptoms are more important than the cause, because the symptoms often include death. This is where synthetic drugs are good. Herbs would mainly be useful as a sidekick.
In disease where the symptoms are more chronic but less serious than death, herbs can come into their own. This includes things like vitiligo, hay fever, chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.
I would say absolutely herbs are a good thing to look into for autoimmune disease. But the first thing would be to get a decent multivitamin (not centrum synthetic crap), vitamin D and K, and eat brightly coloured (especially red) vegetables/fruits. Then check with your doctor before eating herbals like I mentioned.
Edit: Actually "Eve" is a bit crap. Anyway. A good multivitamin. Maybe just vitabiotics ha.