How did you control inflammation?
Heh you don't probably want to know. My case is very atypical. Due to my rare autoimmune disease there was no choice but to use glucocorticoids as the main anti-inflammatory agents. Florinef to regulate electrolytes was huge. Cytomel T3 to bypass high reverse T3 so I could get out of hypothyroid was massively important to get metabolism up and get the body out of crisis mode. T3 actually upregulates NE receptors especially in the brain, but if you are hypothyroid and your metabolism is a mess then you are screwed anyways and the ANS churns out NE faster than you can imagine. Other hormone replacements like DHEA and testosterone (I am male) are also anti-inflammatory.
Adding methylation support is a bit trickier. Methylfolate, B2, B3, B6, mb12 all improve energy, mood, neurotransmitters but do not seem to lower inflammation. If anything methylfolate increases it for me. But ... adb12 seems to definitely have some positive effects in that regards so it is a staple of supplement regimen now.
Finding out I had Celiac's and going gluten free was huge. Learning I was allergic at a IgG and IgA level to milk, soy, corn, and olives was important and avoiding any amounts of those in food or supplements was key. Good probiotics helped. Sialex from Ecological Formulas with mucin and sialic acid has done wonders for certain aspects of my autoimmune disease (sialic acid has been recently reported as key to helping the friend or foe identification of IgG proteins by augmenting the detection apparatus of the active Fabc domains). High protein diet to fend off muscle catabolism so norepinephrine drops.
Only recently did I learn I have diabetes insipidus so that was not helping things. Now that I am on desmopressin, pain levels in the muscles have dropped a lot. Another rare disorder but the clinical and laboratory results were undeniable and vetted over two years. Just trying to tune dosage now. Water control as you can imagine is pretty freaking fundamental.
I have tried other things. Some of the anti-oxidants like r-lipoic acid, sodium ascorbate, vitamin E, etc. are all part of my regimen. Curcumin is very anti-inflammatory but sadly destroys my gut. I must be allergic to the turmeric. Quercetin is also anti-inflammatory but by the third day of taking it I have insomnia. Fun. I take a boatload of magnesium. I take some of the Krebs intermediate (fumarate, malate, citrate, pyruvate, etc.). Lot of my supplements are to boost Krebs cycle. Calcium pyruvate and d-ribose have been VERY beneficial. While they are not strictly anti-inflammatory, keeping your body out of pain, stress, and crisis states so you can sleep, eat, have a good mood, is very important for immune system regulation.
At this point I think one of the final frontiers is getting some of my mineral balance right. Manganese and molybdenum levels are in the toilet. Zinc, copper, selenium are ok. Lithium is non-existent. The other final frontier is my gut. I know have a gut dysbiosis based on a SIBO test. I also have a lot of inflammation in the gut. So yeah still work to do.
My hope is to be able to gradually lower my prednisone to a state that is not as destructive ultimately for connective tissue and bones for the long haul. But if I had not gotten on glucocorticoids in 2009 I wouldn't be here, and if the doctors did not increase them once the autoimmune disease was diagnosed I would have not been able to go back to work.