Alternative Medicine Treatments for Pain

The two main categories of pain are acute pain and chronic pain.

Acute pain is that which comes on quickly, can be severe and lasts a relatively short time. It is usually attributable to a specific injury and usually responds to treatment more quickly than chronic pain. Here’s an example of acute pain and its cause:

A person bends over to lift a heavy object from the ground with their knees straight, resulting in sudden sharp lower back pain with radiating leg pain. This describes the pain characteristically resulting from an acute lower back disc protrusion. This spine pain is often called sciatica because the disc injury irritates the sciatic nerve.

Chronic pain is that which persists and progresses over a long period of time. It usually responds to treatment more slowly than acute pain. Chronic pain is usually multifactorial. In other words, it typically stems from a number of different causes. Here are some examples of chronic pain:

Fibromyalgia, a condition in which a person suffers multiple areas of severe muscle tenderness, numbness and tingling, and anxiety.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or CFS, which shares many of the symptoms of fibromyalgia along with extreme fatigue aggravated even by minimal physical activity.

There are multiple alternative medicine treatment options for acute and chronic pain. For acute pain involving muscles and joints, I have had exceptional results using various types of chiropractic treatments, manual massage and physical therapy procedures and modalities. turmeric, cayenne, and proteolytic enzymes are effective for quick relief of acute musculoskeletal and chronic inflammatory pain. For acute digestive tract pain, digestive enzymes, probiotics, aloe vera juice or aloe vera leaf extract, slippery elm extract, mastic gum and calcium/magnesium citrate can provide quick pain relief. For chronic pain relief, turmeric and cayenne herbal extracts are highly effective due to their powerful anti-inflammatory effects. Ribose and co-enzyme Q10 are also helpful for chronic pain because of their effect on providing the cells with energy. Cells with low energy secrete inflammatory substances that cause pain. Chiropractic, massage and acupuncture are very effective for chronic pain relief.

These are just a few of the options for pain relief using alternative and complementary health care methods. Contact me if you have any questions on treatment for your acute and/or chronic pain. If you have chronic fatigue and/or fibromyalgia, here’s a patient testimonial on Yelp. Additional patient testimonials can be found on my website.