How to reduce pain naturally

Imagine you’re in your living room and you smell grass fire smoke. Your first thought is “I hope someone called the fire department!” You walk outside to see the source of the smoke hoping the fire is not near your home. Next you hear the wail of the fire engines and you breathe a sigh of relief knowing that someone did in fact make the call and that all is happening as it should.

Now imagine you witness a mob of angry neighbors run out and stop the fire truck and disable the siren for the sake of keeping the peace and quiet. The fire keeps raging and further attempts by the fire department to reach the fire are met with a similar fate as the first truck. This pattern continues month after month and soon the city sees the logic in these events and hires a team of “anti-wailing specialists” to stop the emergency response protocol and appease the people annoyed by the noise. Eventually, everyone learns to ignore the fires, and put up with the unintended side effect of low fire crew morale.

What?

This sounds totally ridiculous to us, but that is exactly how most pharmaceutical pain medications manage painful inflammation in the body – suppress the symptom without addressing the cause. This begs the question, is this wise? To answer that question, I propose a better question, what is pain?

We’ve all come to believe that pain is simply the message your body is sending your brain that something is wrong. Like the 911 call to the fire department, this is the primary function and purpose of pain. Pain is there to warn us of something in our body that is threatening the healthy status quo. In this context, blocking the pain messages makes as much sense as sending a team of specialists to stop the fire engines from wailing thereby preventing they do their job.

More specifically, pain is a result of inflammation. When you are injured, the body responds with cyclooxygenase-2 or COX-2. COX-2 involves turning a stored fat called arachidonic acid into prostaglandins, which inflame injured areas and lead to pain. Sounds simple enough, right? Yes and no.

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as an “experience.” Clinical Neurosciences Professor Lorimer Moseley, Chair of Physiotherapy, University of South Australia, wrote an article on this wherein he states “Pain is usually triggered by messages that are sent from the tissues of the body when those tissues are presented with something potentially dangerous.”
Notice that it doesn’t say the message is the pain. What Moseley is saying is that the message triggers the feeling of pain. So does this suggest that the level of pain one person feels compared to another from the same painful experience is modulated by our brain? The popular expression: “It’s all in your head,” referring to an exaggerated reaction to a mild bump or bruise, may actually have scientific evidence to support it, according to Moseley.

My wife and I have seen this theory prove itself while observing our girls. Our first daughter almost always had an overly melodramatic pain response to a simple fall when she was learning to walk, whereas our second daughter barely flinches at the same experience.

Now let me ask the question, how do YOU respond to the pain you experience? Do your fears or beliefs affect the threshold of pain you feel, either upward or downward? Pain scientists are fascinated with that question and have come up with some theories which are based on actual physiological evidence of what is actually happening.

For example, they have observed how pain from a mild sunburn or surface cut is accentuated while taking a hot shower. This leads scientists to theorize that tissue damage doesn’t exactly correspond with the level of pain one experiences and thereby leads some to believe that your perception or belief of a given injury influences the corresponding painful experience. In other words, our beliefs impact the pain we experience. This is the placebo effect at work. That is, if you don’t believe it should hurt, then your experience of pain is affected by that belief and you feel less pain.

They also theorize that the pain receptors vary in sensitivity depending on the level of tissue damage. Moseley states: “The neurones that carry those messages are called nociceptors, or danger receptors. We call the system that detects and transmits noxious events “nociception”. Critically, nociception is neither sufficient nor necessary for pain. But most of the time, pain is associated with some nociception. The exact amount or type of pain depends on many things. One way to understand this is to consider that once a danger message arrives at the brain, it has to answer a very important question: “How dangerous is this really?” In order to respond, the brain draws on every piece of credible information – previous exposure, cultural influences, knowledge, other sensory cues – the list is endless.”

This has been true for me. I recall that years ago while working in construction, I accidentally shot myself in the arm with a nail gun. I did not feel any pain at first, only after seeing the surreal image of the nail penetrating thru my wrist did my mind conclude this must be very painful. Sure enough, by the time I got to the hospital 40 minutes later, the pain was so intense I could barely speak. Contrasting this with the pain of whacking my thumb with a hammer, the pain in that case was immediate! Why did it take so long for the pain from the nail to manifest itself whereas the pain from the hammer was immediate? It could be that the rate of inflammation was different with the nail than with the hammer (I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere).

Then there’s internal pain, as in chest pain, intestinal pain, joint pain, headache, etc. What is the rate of inflammation and how does it relate to the messages to the brain? How does the placebo effect impact our experience of pain in this case? This becomes quite complex given the innumerable factors that can lead to pain. Most of us aren’t scientists and don’t really care; all we want to do is feel less pain. As such, a better question should be, “How should I treat the pain?”

The answer to this lies in the underlying cause that triggers the neurones to carry the message of pain to the brain – inflammation. The purpose of inflammation is to signal healing to begin. In other words, regardless of the type, level, source or length of pain the function is the same: to inform us of a condition that is out of the normal and which requires some action on our part to facilitate healing.

The problem is that the most common medical response to pain is to treat inflammation as the disease and prescribe a drug that interferes with the messaging system to “relieve” the pain. Whereas this might be necessary in some instances, such as in cases of trauma, the most common type of pain the vast majority of people experience does not call for relief.

For example, pharmaceutical drugs such as aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen, work by inhibiting COX-2 enzymes. Although these are the most popular pain-relief medications, long-term use can cause serious side-effects such as gastrointestinal upset, peptic ulcers and intestinal bleeding, and may even contribute to colon, kidney or liver damage. In fact, a report in The American Journal of Medicine revealed that more than 107,000 people are hospitalized each year due to complications from nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use.

This begs another question, should a pain medication that interferes with normal cellular function, compromises the body’s natural healing mechanism and causes tissue damage from long term use really be classified as an anti-inflammatory? Pain “relief” is not the same as pain elimination, which is the function of the pain message, i.e. it hurts, so protect the area from further tissue damage so the body can repair the damage.

So what is a better solution to treating pain? I submit to you that the best way to respond to pain is to give the body’s healing mechanism what it needs to repair the damaged tissue. What is that something? Plant-based compounds with medicinal properties, i.e. an anti-inflammatory substance where healing is facilitated and promoted, not interfered with.

Where do I find plant substances with anti-inflammatory properties? There are two sources: plant foods for internal ingestion and plant ointments for topical and localized application.

According to an article in onegreenplanet.org, the top 10 anti-inflammatory foods for vegan athletes are: Whole grains, Leafy greens, Blueberries, Turmeric, Sweet potatoes, Green tea, Nuts and seeds, Soy, Shiitake mushrooms, and Garlic.

However, I must emphasize that you can cancel the benefit of these anti-inflammatory, healing properties of whole plant foods, with inflammatory junk foods such as meats, processed and refined products full of white flour, sugar, oils and/or artificial additives. For example, chocolate-covered almonds or sweet potato fries are not anti-inflammatory, so if you’re wanting to heal faster, stay away from these foods!

As far as anti-inflammatory herbs and topical remedies, Mother Earth Living lists the following plants that offer relief through their anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties:

1. Boswellia
2. Devil’s claw
3. Ginger
4. Turmeric
5. Willow bark (aptly named “nature’s aspirin” due to a compound it contains called Salicin, which works like aspirin to help reduce pain)

As for other topical treatments, here are some common natural remedies with anti-inflammatory properties or tissue-repairing effects:

1. Arnica
2. Cayenne pepper
3. Cloves
4. Ice/heat
5. Acupuncture
6. Epsom salt
7. Magnesium oil

Visit this link or this link to read more about home remedies for arthritis and joint pain.

The bottom line is that we must change our thinking to see pain not as an annoyance to be subdued or as the cause of our discomfort, but as a symptom of an actual problem to be addressed. The amazing thing about this issue is that God has already designed our body with the power to heal itself, providing we cooperate with the body’s systems put into motion to heal the damaged tissue.

To put this to the test for any chronic pain, I recommend a detox followed by three months of nourishing the body with whole plant foods; that is, no processed, refined, artificial or animal food products. Eat nothing but fruits, veggies, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. Then get plenty of sun, exercise and restful sleep.

This requires patience in that healing takes time, sometimes months or years, depending on the severity of the injured tissue. It also takes discipline and courage in that you may have to make some significant accommodations to your life or your daily schedule to give the body time to heal without the risk of additional injury or prolonged healing.

For example: a woman might have to give up wearing high heeled shoes if she has to do a lot of walking in them; a man may have to give up his hobby of being a weekend warrior if he is exposing himself to serious injury by not being physically conditioned for the activity.

Although I believe God created our body to heal itself, I don’t push myself too hard or abuse my body. When accidents happen and injury does occur, I seek out natural, plant or herbal remedies for reducing inflammation and facilitating healing. After all, human beings have been using plants as medicine for thousands of years. I recommend a ginger-turmeric tea made from fresh ginger root and fresh turmeric root; and hot salsa!

For topical treatments, I recommend a product called Real Time Pain Relief – view the website here. It is made with 19 plant ingredients, including Capsicum, Aloe, Arnica, Menthol and Willow Bark, that penetrate your skin to reduce inflammation (and by association, reduce pain) and is made WITHOUT harmful chemicals (like Sulfate Lauryl Sulfate which irritates the skin) or parabens (chemical preservatives). It can be used on children, and they even have a product for your pets!