Sugar and joint pain

Bump

I too have noticed a link between joint pain and eating refined/concentrated sugar. If I indulge in "sweets" (cake, cookies etc), I will ache all over for a couple of days. I have only recently discovered that I am affected this way and it may not be so for everyone. I had assumed that I felt joint pain due to excess weight and a family history of arthritis. While those factors contribute to joint pain (particularly the hips, knees and ankles), sugar plays a huge role in how I feel.

This past spring, I gave up sweets for Lent. This meant no candy, cake, cookies, sugar drinks etc. for six weeks. After a little while, I noticed that climbing stairs and moving about was easier and less painful. I had lost a few pounds, so I thought that was why. About a month into the season, a pizza sized cookie was brought to a club meeting to celebrate someone's birthday. I gave in to the temptation and ate a piece, put it on my MFP tracker and ate a very light supper that night. I went to bed feeling OK, but woke the next morning with my whole body stiff and with painful joints. It took most of the day for me to put two and two together and figure out that it possibly was caused by the large cookie. I ached for a few days and then felt better. Since then if I indulge, I have similar results.

I have always had a "sweet tooth" but it looks like it has caught up with me. I don't know if whole food sugars (fruits, grains) cause me any problems - I haven't yet been willing to give them up to find out. I just know that I do feel much better if I avoid those processed/refined/concentrated sugar goodies.

How did you conclude that this is a problem for you?

Thank you, all! I just googled "joint pain from sugar" and found this thread and it has been SO helpful. I am in so much pain today, and I just needed confirmation that it was the damn sugar I ate yesterday. Now I'm sure. Everything HURTS. Part of the sugar yesterday was that I drank a glass of red wine -- I wasn't sure how I would feel; now I know. But I also ate a very small bowl of almond-milk ice cream (made with cane sugar) and ate half a dark-chocolate bar, which calculated to 7g of sugar. Still, it was all sort-of healthy and I thought maybe I wouldn't feel it much, but today I am IN PAIN.

The confusing thing for me is that before I started eating clean (mostly paleo) just a few months ago, I ate a pretty sugar-and-carb-filled diet -- and my body never hurt this much. It's only now that I've cleaned up my diet completely, that sugar causes me such pain. Does anyone else have this experience? I'd love to hear. Thank you. (My stomach always hurt, and my digestion sucked, my energy was terrible, but my joints didn't use to hurt.)

gabriellebklyn wrote: »

. (My stomach always hurt, and my digestion sucked, my energy was terrible, but my joints didn't use to hurt.)

I have been battling food issues for 5+ years. If you have all of the symptoms above then it was only a matter of time before your joints started hurting. Mine started with stomach pain and inflammation (was on prilosec for years) but then came debilitating daily migraines, light sensitivity, anxiety, no energy, etc, etc... I went gluten free which helped with headaches and some other symptoms. Kicking the sugar/carbs has been a struggle so I still have the symptoms you noted but they come and go depending on how bad I have been. I have been a sugar/carb junkie my whole life. I have the will power to ditch sugar/carbs but I am just hungry non stop when I limit or eliminate all carbs. Caffeine messes with me badly too.

One other interesting thing: I am much more prone to joint injury while working out when I am bad with limiting carbs leading up to a workout.....

thyme4 wrote: »

I see this topic has been around for a while, but felt like I wanted to add my experience. About 16 months ago I decided to restrict my overall sugar consumption in order to assess its impact on pain and stiffness in my feet. I take several dance and yoga classes a week, and had been reaching a point where I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to continue. I happened to meet a dance teacher who had been diagnosed with arthritis in her feet and as a result of that discussion, started doing some research.

I started looking into connections between diet and inflammation and came up with a list of "likely suspects" and the one that stood out to me was sugar. Yes, I ate other things (potatoes, glutens, etc) on the list but the thing I ate the most of was sugar, so that was where I started.

As many others have recounted, I found a direct link between sugar consumption and the pain in my feet. I experienced complete reversal of symptoms within a month, and on top of that found that my cravings for foods (of all types) were diminished as well. And it was so effective, I never even bothered eliminating the other items from my diet.

There are lots of nay-sayers on the sugar issue here in MFP, but this is my one deviation from the IIFYM rule. I limit my consumption of sugar carbs from all sources to around 35g per day. I find at this level I don't experience joint pain, I don't have crazy cravings, and my blood sugar levels stay stable without having to eat every few hours. Wish I'd made this connection years ago.

Yep!

get_fit2009 wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed a correlation between sugar consumption and aching joints. I was eating "clean" for quite a long time and working out with no joint pain. I had previously had knee and ankle issues, but they had subsided. For the last 2 months, my appetite has gone crazy and I have eaten whatever I want - which is not good. (This is why I am also back to this site. ) SInce starting to eat sugar and junk food again, a notice a tremendous difference in the aches and pains I am having. It is really surprising how big a difference it has made. Anyone else have anything similar happen?

This is common and usually occurs because it is causing inflammation in your body. This happened to me and I stopped eating it.