At age 25 Barbara Allan became one of the over 9.1 million people in the United States with an autoimmune-type arthritis. Her arthritis was triggered by a bout of bacterial dysentery caused by eating food contaminated with a bacterium called Shigella.Reactive arthritis was the name given to her condition. In many respects, it is very similar to rheumatoid arthritis. In fact, she eventually got well using methods proven to work for rheumatoid arthritis.The arthritis came on very suddenly and left her in chronic, overwhelming pain that often made it difficult to walk even a few steps without passing out. Sometimes the pain was so bad that she was incapable of rational thought, or any thought at all. Sometimes her hands hurt so much she couldn't even hold silverware well enough to feed herself. For years she lived with the loss of many things that she had valued highly: her health, her mobility and to a some extent the use of her mind. She lost friendships, status, the ability to continue as a graduate student, and the ability to hold a regular job.Usually this type of arthritis goes away within a month, but her case went on for years. Her doctors didn't know what to do with her. Nothing they tried did much good.Her illness led her to devote 11 years of her life to systematically researching and personally testing promising alternative therapies until she perfected the nine secrets that successfully cured her own difficult disease.Eventually she was able to completely overcome her arthritic condition using the nine secrets mentioned in the title of her book. Each method provided a lasting and dramatic improvement in her condition. After years of having difficulty just walking from one room to another, she now enjoys walking many miles a week and goes on 30-50 mile bike rides for fun. She has regained full use of her hands and her hips. The pain and fatigue are gone. Today she is totally arthritis-free and shares with others what helped her get well.
