HI eveyone! I have been low carbing on and off for over a year now and have lost over 60 pounds. I am really trying hard to lose the last bit now. Several weeks ago i developed knee and elbow pain while doing atkins. I decided to go off the diet for the holidays and i noticed the pain went away. I went back to atkins 5 days ago and the pain is back.

I'm 31 years old and have never injured my elbow or knee. I am only taking a once a day multivitamin at this time. Does anyone know why this could be happening and if there is anythign i may be lacking in my diet or supplements that could help with this.

Thank you!!

This is a bit of a long shot, but speaking for myself, I tend to slack off exercising when I don't watch what I eat as closely as usual. Do you do that? Because if you took an exercise break along with your diet break, maybe your exercise is causing joint pain. I've hurt myself exercising without being aware of it at the time. Maybe your joint pain a low-grade inflammation or mild injury related to exercise. Or maybe mild arthritis?

Rachel

Are you taking your fish oils?

Umm, when I began Atkins, I had periodic bone pain. I credited the pain to the fact that maybe my bones are getting harder. I don't know why I had the pain but I continued the diet regardless. Now, go back to my pre-Atkins days, I had lots of joint pain in my wrists and knees. Now 5 years later, my bones feel good. I have no joint pain. It has nothing to do with weightloss because my wrists do not support my weight unless I am on top of my husband and when I am in that position, there is no pain. So my theory is, you will feel worse before you feel better. But again, that was MY experience. Now along with that story, I had to have my knee xrayed because of a work injury. The doctor was impressed with my healthy bone mass at an age when I should have signs of osteroporosis.

It is possible that you are sensitive to arachidonic acid.
This is from the old Protein Power website (I am not sure if the link still works. ), but as Atkins is very similar to PP, the same info applies.

Taking fish oil should definitely help, too.

Roz

wierd. I have nerve pain and bone pain when I eat something high carb now...just the opposite.

This struck my interest as I had some horrible hip pain for years after doing Atkins - I'm not saying it's related - BUT - I always said wow I've lost weight I thought my hips and joints would feel better. I had epidural shots, pills, lyme tests, inflammation tests (all fine), and went to see a chiropractor (who I might add had helped). Anyway, since the summer I've been following a low cal/low fat (not low carb) diet to get to goal and my hips feel fine? Don't know if it's a coincidence or not?

I too have suffered joint pain; it went on for ages...I mean at times it was really sore. My ankles, my, wrists, just about everywhere hurt. I'm not sure what the cause was, but then I started the Vit D experiment (not for the bone pain I should add), after a few days I noticed a considerable difference and after a week the pain had gone. The only problem was I gained 6lb that week even though I stuck to plan (A induction). I put it down to there being something in the vits and so I stopped taking them and sure enough I lost 4lb in two days. I started taking them again and then gained 2lb...So finally I quit them yesterday. I'm down 1lb today...I wonder if the joint pain will return. By the way I was taking:
Vit D3 7,400 IU as cholecalciferol
Vit A 25,000 IU from fish liver
Calcium 1,500 IU
Chromium Picolinate 600ug
Vit C crystals (pure L-ascorbic acid) 75000% RDA

I get severe leg cramps if I eat something high carb, but apart from that I used to have incredibly stiff and painful joints BEFORE I started low carbing, it stopped completely within days of starting Atkins

I have a friend that is the opposite, she gets joint pain when she's not low-carbing, low-carbing clears it up.

I think Rosebud's idea has some merit. Has your red meat & egg consumption increased since low-carbing?

Thank you all so much for the responses!

I don't consume much red meat at all. I'm a chicken/fish kinda gal. But i do eat eggs everyday. Maybe i should switch to eggbeaters.

I'm going to google this a bit. thanks so much for your thoughts on this!! It just might be the acid...

Pork is pretty high in that acid so if you are eating a lot of it then it will give you joint pain. So will nightshades as well (tomatoes, peppers, etc).

I've had to give up pork as well as nightshades otherwise my arthritis flares up badly.

Aspirin interrupts the arachadonic acid cascade. If arachadonic acid is the problem then popping a couple of aspirin will cause a dramatic reduction in pain.

I get joint pain from grains, specifically, gluten grains.

Me too. I also noticed the problem with pork, but not eggs.