Has anyone tried artemisinin for treatment?

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I have lived with hyperthyroidism for a few years. A couple of weeks ago my blood test came back and showed evaluated SSA, SSB and ANA (1:320). I went to see four different rheumatologists and they suspected I might have Sjogren Syndromes but cannot give me any medicine because I don't exhibit any symptoms of Sjogren Syndromes except mild wrist pains. Two rheumatologists also suspected the positive SSA, SSA and ANA might be a result of the untreated hyperthyroidism and high anti-thyroid antibodies. 

I read many threads and I see there is high occurrence of Sjogren Syndrome among people with thyroid disorders. I am looking forward to getting some advice on how to prevent developing Sjogren Syndromes. I read two auto-immune books and both authors recommended the diet that is free of refined sugar, gluten, processed food, red meat or even grains. Has anyone found it helpful?

I watched a video on Youtube and a rheumatologist recommended some natural treatment for Sjogren Syndrome. He highly recommended the artemisinin. Has anyone tried artemisinin for treatment and is it effective? 

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  • Posted

    Hi namesake!

    Thanks for that - I'd never heard of this use of artemisinin before, though I knew it was an anti-malarial.

    I found a very interesting scientific paper about it. I can't post a link here but if you type in "Hindawi" and "artemisinin" it should come up. It's quite technical, but you can scroll down to point 5. Summary and Future Outlook, which gives a more digestible overview.

    According to the paper, AI diseases for which it's been investigated are RA, SLE, MS and allergies. There's no mention of Sjogren's syndrome, but I'm sure that will surprise no one on this forum, as SS has always been the neglected poor relation of the connective-tissue group of AI conditions. I think it's worth a look, in any case.

    I see you have hyperthyroidism in spite of having anti-thyroid antibodies. That would be fairly unusual, but then anything is possible in AI conditions. Usually, those of us who have anti-thyroid antibodies have hypothyroidism, which requires lifelong supplementation with synthetic thyroid hormone. I have hypothyroidism myself, but I know some AI conditions - notably Hashimoto's thyroiditis - can cause hyperthyroidism as well. A colleague of mine who was diagnosed with Hashimoto's ended up having to have a total thyroidectomy, as her thyroid kept going into overdrive.

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