Effective pain relief without OTC drugs....

Today's Post: Thursday, 3-24-2011

Aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil Motrin etc), and acetaminophen (Tylenol) do have some risks and side effects. Except for acetaminophen (Tylenol) most people can take them occasionally with few problems. But taking several a day as many do, is risky!

1. Everyone should have real aspirin on hand because if you do get a heart attack, chewing up a couple and chasing them with a bit of water as soon as you think you are having one does increase your odds of surviving if you are having a heart attack!

But taking aspirin a lot or daily can cause intestinal bleeding and even death as there are often no symptoms. So, if you often have headaches, muscle aches, or joint pain, taking aspirin day after day may not be wise.

2. Ibuprofen (Advil Motrin etc) & other NSAID pain relievers in that group are also not a great idea for frequent use. The three risks that I think important are that:

If you are taking them, the emergency heart attack use of aspirin no longer works;

I’ve read that some studies have found they actually cause further joint damage when taking daily for joint pain;

& they can make blood-thinning supplements and drugs work too well creating bleeding problems.

3. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) has caused liver damage, liver failure, liver transplants, and death.

For people who drink more than one or two glasses of alcoholic drinks a week or take niacin or statin drugs to lower bad cholesterol, it’s far safer to not take acetaminophen (Tylenol). Doing those things stresses the liver ahead of time which makes taking acetaminophen (Tylenol) risky.

And, though the liver stress on people who don’t do those things from acetaminophen (Tylenol) seems variable. Some people can take 3 or 4 extra strength Tylenol with no problems. But enough people have had liver damage problems taking that much that acetaminophen (Tylenol) may have a warning label soon with these risks listed.

What to do instead?

1. Don’t do the things that produce pain on a daily basis in many people. In our post on Nondrug ways to prevent or remove joint pain, on Friday, 2-25-2011, we described how:

Avoiding intake of excess omega 6 from corn & soy oil (extra virgin olive oil avoids this problem);

Avoiding fats from grain fed animals; and eating no refined grain foods and a bit less of even whole grains plus eating fish high in omega 3 and taking purified fish oil omega 3 supplements;

AND, eating curried foods with turmeric and taking curcumin supplements derived from turmeric work together to remove or prevent chronic inflammation.

This prevents a lot of frequent pain and has even turned off joint pain as well as the OTC drugs do in some studies.

Even better, doing this set of things prevents heart disease, many cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease.

People who exercise regularly without overdoing it and those who eat onions and garlic often also tend to have less aches and pains.

Why take OTC pain meds for frequent pain you can simply not have in the first place?

So, I highly recommend this solution!

2. Ginger also works as well or better than OTC drugs to lower inflammation and so often reduces pain that well too. (It also tends to prevent nausea and motion sickness and is related to turmeric. So many of its effects are similar.)

You can add powdered ginger to sweet or savory foods. (I’m quite fond of the taste of ginger and cinnamon combined in the few sweet dishes I eat.)

You can cook many savory foods using diced ginger root after it’s been peeled. In the right foods it adds a very nice spicy touch.

I’ve even taken to putting a spice container capful of powdered ginger into a half of a glass of water, stirring, and then adding enough water to fill the glass and drinking it down. The taste is a bit strong; but it produces a very nice afterglow effect in my mouth that I’ve come to like.

Yesterday, Dr Al Sears had this long list of pain relief benefits of ginger in his email on this subject.:

“A study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine looked at ginger along with traditional pain medications. They found that ginger can reduce pain in the muscles and joints by as much as 25 percent.

Taking raw and cooked ginger daily can be an effective pain reliever – even for inflammatory conditions like osteoarthritis. That’s because inflammation is the root cause of all kinds of problems – from arthritis and back pain to muscle aches.

Ginger contains 12 different compounds that fight inflammation. Some block the Cox-2 enzyme which triggers it. Some lower pain-receptor and nerve-ending sensitivity. Together they work almost the same as anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and aspirin.”

3. He also notes that Devil’s claw that we covered in our post on joint pain we just noted, works well.

“Despite its name, Devil’s Claw has many healing properties. Studies have proven its effectiveness in reducing the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, tendonitis, bursitis and even lower back pain.”

The information I got before that previous post was that Devil’s Claw also helps prevent or turn off hip pain.

4. Acupuncture works to turn off pain for some people and in larger cities licensed practitioners are available. One doctor in the United States became believer in it after seeing an operation in China done with only acupuncture as an anesthetic! There apparently is some ability of acupuncture done correctly to release the body’s own natural opiates.

5. For nerve pain or diabetic nerve pain, four 500 mg capsules a day of ALC, acetyl l-carnitine, and taking the B1 related supplement, benfotiamine also has been found effective.

6. Lastly, massage helps specific area muscle aches and for chronic pain management in general when done as little as once a week.

And, people who practice Tai Chi daily are significantly better able to deal with chronic pain.

So by preventing pain, using these steps to reduce inflammation and pain, and using the ways to help manage pain if it is chronic, you can usually get as good a pain relief result as you can with OTC drugs.

When you do these steps instead of taking OTC pain relievers, you also have much lower risks and other health benefits.

That’s a combination I like!