Natural Pain relief

Painful conditions can be helped with natural and safe therapies and yet many people are unaware of these wonderful tools. It is important to understand the cause of the most common types of painful conditions that afflict humans – namely pain in the joints, lower back, muscles, nerves and connective tissues such as ligaments.

The cause of this pain is inflammation. This inflammation in the tissues is caused by free radicals and these problems become more common as we get older. This is because our immune system becomes less able to protect us against inflammation.

What causes this excessive inflammation?

• Autoimmune genes which you inherit
• A poor diet high in sugar or foods that you are allergic to, such as gluten or dairy products
• Leaky gut
• Fatty liver
• Trauma and wear and tear
• Adrenal insufficiency
• Obesity
• Viruses such as Ross River Virus or Dengue fever
• Chronic infections in the sinuses, intestines and other nooks and crannies in the body

Natural Pain Relieving Treatments

To start with, a simple 2 week detoxification is a great way to reduce inflammation in the intestines and the whole body. This can be done by eating only fruits and vegetables and bone broth for 2 weeks.

Probiotics and fermented foods can reduce inflammation in the intestines and the whole body.

Try a diet which eliminates processed foods, gluten and sugar.

Increase healthy fats in the diet – oily fish, hemp seeds, flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, avocados, coconut flesh and oil and cold pressed olive oil.

Raw vegetable juices are a good way to increase your intake of antioxidants – choose ginger, mint, parsley, rocket, cabbage, carrot, green apples, limes and lemons. These juices are wonderful pain killers and often work within an hour.

Supplements to reduce pain

• Vitamin D3 – this vitamin is really a hormone and reduces inflammation throughout the whole body. People who are deficient in vitamin D often suffer chronic bone pain or fibromyalgia.
• Vitamin C is also a wonderful anti-inflammatory and thus pain killer. Some people think that vitamin C is a bit old fashioned and forget about it – but it is powerful and remember that Linus Pauling won the Nobel Prize for his research into the healing benefits of vitamin C.
• Magnesium is a wonderful muscle relaxer and thus reduces pain in those with muscle spasms, cramps and fibromyalgia.
• Selenium is an excellent anti-inflammatory as it helps the body to make the most powerful antioxidant protector in the human body – namely glutathione.
• N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) helps the body to make glutathione and works well with selenium to reduce inflammation.
• Other minerals to reduce pain include zinc, manganese and copper which are found in animal foods, nuts and seeds.
• The enzyme Serrapeptase can reduce pain caused by arthritis, bursitis and tendinitis. Serrapeptase is also of great benefit in those with pain caused by sinusitis as it cleans out the sinuses. It can also help to eat away painful scar tissue, as found in women with chronic pelvic pain caused by endometriosis or pelvic infection.
• Herbs and plants that reduce inflammation include Boswellin, Yukka root and Devil’s Claw, which are found in Joint Eze capsules.

Other substances that can reduce inflammation include –

• Green lipped muscle extract
• MSM
• Glucosamine and chondroitin
• There are pain relieving creams that can be made up by a compounding chemist which contain pain modifying ingredients such as lignocaine 5%, ketamine 10%, amitryptiline 2%, gabapentine 6% and baclofen 2%. These percentages can be changed by your doctor. These are prescription drugs but can be useful for nerve pain and pain in scar tissue. Talk to your doctor about these creams. These creams can be used in combination with natural pain relieving therapies.

Hormones and pain relief

Bio-identical hormones can exert natural anti-inflammatory effects and reduce painful conditions. These include the hormones pregnenolone and testosterone and can reduce painful inflammatory conditions in both men and women.

In those with low adrenal gland function, it is possible to get a significant degree of improvement by using supplements containing whole adrenal gland extract from bovine sources. The adrenal gland extract contains natural steroid hormones which have anti-inflammatory effects.

Back pain

In those with back pain due to mechanical problems such as prolapsed discs and nerve compression the use of a motorized inversion table can bring miraculous relief. This is because it gives traction to the spinal structures thereby reducing compression on the spinal nerves. Indeed, having an inversion table in your own home can be the greatest investment in your health and save you a fortune in money otherwise spent for chiropractic treatment.

Regular exercise such as swimming, stretching, light weights, and pilates can reduce painful muscular conditions.

It is so helpful to know about these natural pain killing strategies because the use of pain killing drugs (analgesics), Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) and immune-suppressant drugs is associated with side effects. These drugs can be wonderful when used short term, but if their use becomes long term and daily, they become less effective and increasingly toxic.

Research at the Mayo Clinic gave an example where the widespread use of high dose paracetamol for arthritis has recently been challenged by the UK National Institute for Health. They cite concerns that paracetamol is linked to gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and renal damage – their conclusion was that osteoarthritis patients should NOT be routinely advised to use paracetamol.

I agree paracetamol is a liver poison.

Guess what the NIH recommended? Diet and exercise!!

Wow, that is fantastic but there was opposition to this from rheumatologists – why? Because they do not have many other choices apart from NSAIDs and opioids. General practitioners were also unimpressed saying that “We cannot prescribe paracetamol, NSAIDs or COX inhibitors – so we are left with drugs of addiction; so now that paracetamol is dangerous, medicine becomes impossible”.

Hooray, I agree! Medicine becomes much easier to practice if you utilize nutritional therapies but you may be accused of using unscientific practices. Governments need to encourage supplement companies to do the proper research of complementary therapies and the freedom to publish their findings in unhealthy people and disease states.

Nutritional medicine should be taught in medical schools on a much wider scale.

For the present time, it is up to consumers to be wary and educate themselves, as change takes many years in medicine.

Remember what Hippocrates the father of medicine said – “First do no harm”. That is why I like nutritional medicine. Not only is it scientific and logical but it treats the causes of disease and is remarkably safe.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.