> Health and Disease > Pain Management

I can summarize what I was taught about treating chronic pain in medical school in two sentences: Use Tylenol or Motrin. If the patient has cancer, you can use narcotics if you have to.

It is no surprise then that pain patients flock to alternative therapists for relief. Fortunately, most chronic pain can now be effectively treated.

Pain is Not the Enemy

Pain is often an indicator of underlying problems that need to be taken care of. Think of it as the red, flashing warning light on your dashboard telling you that something urgently needs your attention. To simply mask the pain with medication would be like covering up your “low gas” warning light because it was annoying you. Aside from turning off the pain signal, it is also important to understand that pain is trying to tell you what your body needs. When this is addressed, the pain usually goes away. While the underlying problems are being treated, it is also necessary to turn off or mask the pain so that you can be comfortable going about your day-to-day activities.

The Pain Beneath

There are usually four key areas that need to be treated in order to eliminate muscle/myofascial and nerve pain. It helps to remember the acronym SHIN which stands for Sleep, Hormonal support, treating Infections, and Nutritional support.

Sleep: Patients in pain frequently suffer from insomnia. Your body’s repair cycle occurs during sleep, and you need eight to nine hours of sleep a night for optimal healing. Your pain will simply not go away until you regularly get eight to nine hours of deep sleep a night.

Many natural supplements that are very effective for promoting sleep also directly help pain, such as the herbs wild lettuce, Jamaican dogwood, theanine, hops, valerian, and passionflower. Nutrients can also be helpful, such as magnesium (take 100 mg to 300 mg), calcium (500 mg to 600 mg), 5-HTP (100 mg to 300 mg, although it takes six weeks to work), and the hormone melatonin (0.3 mg to one mg).

Hormonal deficiencies: Hormonal status needs to be assessed by a medical professional, with symptoms then treated accordingly. Unfortunately, many physicians do not yet realize that lab tests for hormonal problems are not reliable.

If you are tired, achy, and cold-intolerant, or if you are suffering from sudden weight gain and/or brain fog, you may require a trial of natural thyroid hormone.

If you get irritable when you are hungry (hypoglycemia), dizzy when you stand, crash with stress, or if you have low blood pressure, consider using a product to help support the adrenal gland.

If you are a woman whose pain gets worse in the days leading up to your period, consider natural estrogen supplements. This hormone has been found to be fairly safe with the benefits well outweighing the potential harm, and is very useful for treating pain and poor energy levels when used in low doses.

Unusual infections: Yeast overgrowth is the most common and therefore the most important infection to treat. Avoid sugar, take an acidophilus supplement, and consider natural antifungals. When yeast infections are treated properly, chronic sinusitis and spastic colon will also usually go away.

Nutritional inadequacies: You need to give the body the nutritional building blocks it needs to heal, otherwise it cannot even begin to get well. B vitamins, antioxidants, magnesium, zinc, selenium, and amino acids are especially important. For arthritis, try glucosamine sulfate (500 mg three times per day) or MSM (1.5 grams to three grams a day). Within six weeks, most people’s arthritis improves markedly. For nerve pain, supplement with lipoic acid, taking 300 mg three times a day for at least six weeks.

Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, is medical director of the Annapolis Center for Effective CFS/Fibromyalgia Therapies, Maryland, and author of Pain Free 1-2-3- A Proven Program to Get YOU Pain Free! (Deva Press, 2005). Vitality101.com.

Source: alive #271, May 2005