Pain Relief without Drugs

If you are anything like me, your first response to pain may be to reach for a bottle of pills. Pain-relieving pills, however, are not always effective and can have side-effects that can be a very real hazard to health. I’m changing my traditional reaction since researching other options. For example, I now find quicker and more long-lasting relief from back pain caused by tension, fatigue, and poor posture by simply lying on a hot pad for 20 minutes or taking a hot bath than I ever did from a pill. Heat boosts blood flow, relaxes muscles, and soothes both body and soul. Cold packs, on the other hand, slow blood flow to my injured, arthritic knee, relieve swelling, and slow down the nerves’ ability to send messages of pain. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has taught me to manage my body’s physical response, and electrical stimulation techniques such as a TENS unit has helped decrease my pain level.

Non-Drug Solutions for Pain Relief

Pain can be a complex issue to treat and resolve, but there are many safe and effective solutions that can offer relief. The first nine options listed below can provide excellent pain relief—with no side-effects. The CNCA Health website says they are doctor recommended and hospital approved. Some may seem more like prevention than cure, but they all have a documented track record for pain relief.

 1. Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient form of traditional Chinese medicine, now being accepted and recommended by many traditional doctors. Miniscule needles are inserted to stimulate specific points as well as increase and regulate the flow of “qi” (vital energy) in the body. This practice is widely used to control many types of pain, ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome to osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and migraines. My husband experienced relief from severe pain in his shoulder with an acupuncture treatment. Compared to medication, acupuncture has been found to be twice as effective at relieving lower back pain.

2. Hypnosis

Hypnosis by a trained therapist has proven successful in relieving a wide variety of pain conditions and has demonstrated marked improvements for headache, backache, fibromyalgia, cancer pain, and others. Hypnosis works by heightening your responsiveness to suggestions that can alter your physiological state, behaviors, and emotions, so its success depends in large part on whether or not you are open to hypnotic suggestions. It is worth a try since a meta-analysis of 18 published studies shows that 75 percent of participants experienced substantial pain relief from hypnosis for both acute and chronic pain.

3. Healthy Diet

Chronic inflammation is a leading cause of chronic pain. Wise choice of food can help to prevent inflammation in the body, a condition that can lead to physical pain in muscles, joints, and tissues over time.

Highly processed and high-sugar junk foods, such as pastries, French fries, candy, soda, fast food, refined white flour, etc., promote inflammation in your body, whereas fruits and vegetables are naturally anti-inflammatory. For instance, bromelain, an enzyme found in pineapples, is a natural anti-inflammatory. Bromelain can be taken in supplement form, but eating fresh pineapple is more fun!

4. Massage Therapy

According to a survey by the American Hospital Association, about 90 percent of respondents agreed that massage was effective in reducing pain. Massage therapists use a variety of techniques, including kneading, tapping, pressure, and deep circular movements to promote relaxation, decrease anxiety, and relieve tension and pain.

5. Chiropractic Care and Physical Therapy

Chiropractic care can bring significant relief from headaches as well as pain in neck, back, and joints. For example, studies have shown that patients treated by chiropractors for low back pain had greater improvement after one month than patients treated by family physicians. Chiropractic care can help your spine and other body parts get back into proper alignment, which helps relieve pain and support the body’s natural healing processes.

Let me give you some personal examples. I walked into an upper cervical chiropractic office after a week of pain so severe that I was bedfast. It hurt to breathe and it was impossible for me to stand up straight. After just minutes of gentle treatment, my pain was gone. I could breathe deeply and stand straight and tall.

My husband Doug and I have both obtained significant pain relief from physical therapy. After a knee injury, he learned that the pain meds he was taking were damaging his kidneys, so he quit taking them. Looking for other options, he found significant and lasting improvement from just a few sessions with a physical therapist that included heat and cold pack therapy, massage, and exercises to do at home. I had daily headaches that pain medication did little to alleviate, but myofascial release from a physical therapist completely solved my problem. Such treatments get to the source of the problem instead of just covering it up with pain medication.

6. Laughter Therapy

When you laugh, your body releases endorphins, natural painkillers that also contribute to a sense of well-being. Laughter may help to reduce pain directly, while also distracting you from the pain, similar to meditation, and providing a wonderful form of stress relief. Laugher relieves pain by enhancing oxygen intake, boosting your immune system and circulatory system, relaxing your muscles, improving digestion, promoting relaxation, and helping you sleep better. It is well worth the effort to find and share funny jokes, videos, and TV shows that get you to laugh. For example, our friends gave my husband and me a compilation of the cartoon strip “Pickles,” and we often read a page at mealtimes. The clever humor usually gives us a chuckle and often even a good laugh!

7. Music

Good music can be extremely soothing, not only for the mind, but also for the body. Music is a form of pain relief that’s as simple and enjoyable as it is effective for distraction and relaxation. In one study, patients with back, neck, or joint pain experienced a 20 percent decrease in pain after listening to music for one hour a day for seven days, compared to a 2 percent increase in pain in the control group. Music has been found to help reduce post-surgical pain, chronic pain, and cancer pain, along with reducing patients’ need for pain-relieving medications. When I’ve listened to music on my iPod during dental treatments, the pain and discomfort seem much decreased.

8. Exercise

Research studies show promising results in pain relief for exercise when performed in moderation and in keeping with your specific health limitations. Among patients with rheumatoid arthritis, for instance, aerobic and strength training exercises helped improve endurance, strength, and functional ability. Like laughter, exercise prompts the release of pain-relieving endorphins, which can help to block pain signals. Exercise also works to boost your mood, strengthen bones, muscles, and tissues around joints, and provides you with more energy. Regular exercise can also help with weight control, which can be beneficial for certain types of pain, especially joint pain and back pain.

For those with fibromyalgia, one study found pool exercise significantly improved chronic widespread pain, while knee strengthening exercises have been found to significantly reduce knee pain and improve knee function in those with knee pain.

Gentle forms of exercise, such as yoga, can be effective when more strenuous exercise proves daunting. Researchers at Harbor UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California found that engaging in 90-minute yoga sessions three times a week for one month resulted in significant reductions in frequency and severity of chronic pain. Patients were also able to cut back on pain medications and had improvements in mood and anxiety levels.

9. Meditation

Meditation keeps your mind focused on the present, which makes the experience of pain less intense. Originating in Eastern spiritual traditions, meditation is now a common form of mind-body medicine practiced by people of all cultural and religious backgrounds. In a study by researchers from the University of Manchester in England, it was found that people who regularly meditated found pain to be less unpleasant, possibly because they spent less time anticipating it, which blunted its emotional impact.

A separate study found that after just a single hour of mindfulness meditation training over a three-day period, participants felt less pain during meditation and experienced less pain sensitivity when not meditating.

Many cities now offer local classes to learn the basics of meditation, but you can get started on your own. Simply find a quiet location, sit in a comfortable posture, and then focus your attention on your breath, an object or a mantra (a meaningful word or phrase). If you find your mind wandering, simply bring it back to your focal point without judgment. Prayer, tai chi, qi gong, yoga, and journaling can also offer meditative benefits, so choose the form that feels best for you.

Conclusion

If you are in pain, before you reach for the pills, you may decide to experiment with several of the techniques and ideas listed above. The only way to find out which strategies work best for you is to try them. You may find a combination or a rotating schedule of various options most effective. At the very least, these ideas will relieve you of the helpless, even desperate feeling that comes from thinking there is no relief in sight. In reality, you don’t have to live with chronic pain or rely on a bottle of pills for the rest of your life. You have many options because of the wide array of possible solutions to the nagging (and sometimes screaming) problem of pain.

Sidebar

More Natural Pain Relief from Dr. Mercola

Dr. Mercola (on Mercola.com) suggests the following pain-reducing ideas:

Supplements

• High-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, such as krill oil.

• Vitamin D, most effective from regular, appropriate sun exposure, which will work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce your pain.

• Astaxanthin, one of the most effective fat-soluble antioxidants, has very potent anti-inflammatory properties. In many cases, 8 mg or more per day may work far more effectively than anti-inflammatory drugs.

Herbs

• Ginger: This herb has potent anti-inflammatory activity and offers pain relief and stomach-settling properties. Fresh ginger works well steeped in boiling water as a tea or grated into vegetable juice.

• Curcumin: In a study of osteoarthritis patients, those who added 200 mg of curcumin a day to their treatment plan had reduced pain and increased mobility.

• Boswellia: Also known as boswellin or "Indian frankincense," this herb contains specific active anti-inflammatory ingredients. Works especially well to decrease pain from rheumatoid arthritis.

Oils and Creams

• Evening Primrose, Black Currant, and Borage Oils: These contain the essential fatty acid gamma linolenic acid (GLA), which is useful for treating arthritic pain.

• Cayenne Cream: Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body's supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain signals to your brain.

• Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO): This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a "joint lubricant" and an anti-inflammatory.

Mind/Body Techniques

• Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a drug-free approach for pain management of all kinds. EFT borrows from the principles of acupuncture, in that it helps you balance out your subtle energy system. It helps resolve underlying, often subconscious, negative emotions that may be exacerbating your physical pain. By stimulating (tapping) well-established acupuncture points with your fingertips, you rebalance your energy system, which tends to dissipate pain.

• Dr. Mercola also recommends methods such as yoga, Foundation Training, and other mind-body techniques, which can result in astonishing pain relief without any drugs.

 By Darla Isackson