Alternative Medicine And Natural Pain Management

By Richard Ealom

Constant Pain conditions are a growing problem in the USA. And while the discussion still rages about whether or not chronic pain should be managed as an unattached condition or merely a symptom of a different problem it is clear that pain management has become a thriving part of the healthcare industry.

Consequently, the use of pharmaceutical drugs for pain control has also attained an all time high point. Drugs like Oxicontin, Vicodin as well as methadone, are front page news in causing Americas most recent drug predicament, as a result, the usage of cocaine and heroin have also attained levels not seen in this country in thirty yrs.

Owing to the economic and scientific phenomena of the pharmaceutical development of the 20th century, thousands of yrs. of knowledge were abruptly discarded. Herbal medicine has safely and efficiently treated pain for millennia, and is far safer than the synthesized, processed medications that todays physicians seem to be all too eager to hand out like so much candy.

In the realm of alternative medicine, there are many types of natural pain management that are in actuality, the source of where many of our oh-so-well-liked pharmaceutical drugs come from.

Codeine and morphine are opium derivatives that may be helpful but are also greatly addictive, and even aspirin is a by-product of willow bark. Scores of other plants have been used in natural pain management since the distant past, such as lavender and chamomile for minor pain issues and these plants have the added benefit of also assisting with the emotional element of pain such as anxiety and difficulty sleeping. Plants like henbane and mandrake are so efficient that they are even used extremely effectively all through labor to minimize the pain of childbirth.

Some wonderful and potent herbal medicine can also be found in the spice cabinet. Spices like turmeric, and ginger are two of the most powerful anti- inflammatories on the globe. These plants are natural COX-2 inhibitors; they are the alternative medicine answer to the ever popular pharmaceutical drugs Celebrex and Vioxx. In the middle east, India and all over Asia where the diets are rich in spices like turmeric, and ginger and cayenne, where life is also far less well-located then our own, inhabitants have a far less occurrence of arthritis and on going back pain, and yet continue to work very labor intensive jobs such as farming and agriculture work even into their nineties.

There has continuously been an established school of thinking in allopathic medicine that it is all right to damage one part of the body to heal another, as a consequence even ordinary over the counter NSAID pain relievers such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, can bring about long term injury, acetaminophen to the liver and ibuprofen to the kidneys, in natural pain management many plants, roots, barks, and other herbs not only antistetic in nature but they are also anti-inflammatory and anti-spasmodic as well, and herbal medicine is easier on the system and is more synergistic with the body allowing for greater absorption of the essential constitutes.

So you see that alternative medicine goes beyond the normally established ideal of treating only the symptoms and goes farther to treat many of the underlying causes as well as some of the other components involved in chronic pain conditions.

More and more people are turning to herbal healing methods to treat medical problems while alleviating harmful side effects posed by chemical pharmaceuticals. These methods have been used and confirmed effective, for 1000,s of yrs.. - 30540

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