Coping with Pain

Natural treatments for pain

What is pain?

Ouch! that hurts! You may have cut your finger or banged your ‘funny bone’ but how and why things hurt actually isn’t completely obvious. In most case – around 38% – pain is the result of injuries About 24% has a musculo-skeletal origin and a further small percentage is made up of identifiable causes such as cancer or abdominal pain, or even drug side effects.

But interestingly, the second biggest cause of pain is actually unknown. Obviously that doesn’t mean that the condition can’t be labelled, but how and why it hurts is mostly unclear., which means that treatment methods are limited.

Whatever its cause, pain comes in 2 main flavours, acute and chronic. Acute pain can linger and become chronic, chronic pain can become very complicated and involve many factors.

Your mind is often a factor in chronic pain. That’s not to say the pain isn’t real, just that your mind and emotions can become entangled with it and often make it seem worse

For minor or chronic pain, the drugs range from paracetamol, through ibuprofen to opioids of varying strength. Each of these comes with a long term health warning and in the case of opioids with a real danger of addiction.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbs for pain

“Where there is free flow there is no pain, where there is pain there is no free flow”

huang di nei jng

Chinese medicine’s view of pain is different. The quote above encapsulates the idea that healthy energies always move and change, so a lack of movement will lead to illnesses – or pain.

There are lots of things that can interrupt energy flow, so diagnosis depends on many different factors.

For example is the pain in the upper or lower body, is it fixed or does it moves around. Is it acute or chronic. What does the pain feel like – is it stabbing or aching for example,. Is the site hot or cool, red or pale, does the pain improve when you move about or do you just want to curl up with a hot water bottle.

These are just some of the questions you may be asked to establish why you hurt.

Whether herbs or acupuncture or a combination of the two is the the best type of treatment will depend on this diagnosis.

Herbs are often the best thing for chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis though acupuncture might be good for an acute flare-up. How many treatments you would need would be influenced by how chronic or complex your condition is.

The following table isn’t exhaustive but lists some of the conditions acupuncture or herbs might be able to treat.

Acupuncture & herbs for pain
Migraine	Headaches	Back pain
Neck pain	Frozen shoulder	Joint pains
Sports injuries	Nerve pains and trapped nerves	fibromyalgia
Painful periods	Pelvic pain	Plantar fasxciiitis