Why More and More People are Looking for Drug Free Pain Relief
When it comes to pain the adage “sometimes the cure is worse than the disease” is all too often true. This is why, whether one of the hundreds of millions suffering from chronic pain, and even those whose only complaints are an occasional tension headache or muscle pain after working out a bit too vigorously, more and more people are looking for drug free pain relief.
Although we don’t look forward to being in pain, it is important to understand that pain has a positive function when it comes to maintaining good health. In simplest terms, pain is a messenger that lets us know something is amiss. The function of pain is to stimulate a sort of chain reaction in the body. Pain first sends a message from the peripheral nervous system (PNS) to the central nervous system (CNS) that basically says “Hey, there’s something very wrong here and you better do something about it.” Because the message is (excuse the pun) painful to hear, the CNS then sends specialized messages out to the body that stimulate various chemical reactions for the purpose of repairing the damage or fighting off infection.
Pain’s Purpose
Pain has now served its function and, in a perfect world, the body’s natural pain killers (called endorphins) mute the sensation of pain and all is well. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Sometimes pain is still felt because the endorphins aren’t strong enough and sometimes the level of pain continues because it serves as a continuous alarm to our immune system to continue working to repair or fight off whatever is going wrong.
The problem is pain hurts and the normal human response to pain is to make it go away – the sooner the better, and this most often means taking some sort of drug designed to interfere with this whole pain messaging system. At first pain medications have a really good chance of working. However, for a variety of reasons, pain medications typically either stop working, or must be stopped due to detrimental side effects.
Pain Meds are Not a Long Term Solution for Pain Relief
Pain medications can stop working due to many causes. A common reaction to taking pain medication over time is that the patient develops a tolerance to the drug and it takes higher and higher doses to work. Unfortunately, even the recommended dosages have toxic qualities that must be processed. Both the toxins and the process of ridding the body of these toxins (such as being filtered by the liver and kidneys) can cause further, and serious, damage.
Fortunately, information regarding the detrimental impact of various pain killers has become common knowledge and has resulted in many people seeking drug free alternatives when it comes to reducing pain. Numerous studies have indicated that drug free options for pain management not only work – but oftentimes work better than pain killing drugs. For example, the respected medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine published a study showing that chiropractic care and exercise was twice as likely to relieve neck pain as taking pain medication.
Another excellent drug free method for pain relief is hydrotherapy and massage. Both hydrotherapy and massage have been used for literally eons as a curative for pain. In the UK the ancient city of Bath is the location of Britain’s world renowned natural hot springs. People flock to this famous resort area to partake the benefits of the mineral rich waters and a getting a massage in Bath relieves pain in the body, reduces stress in the mind, and refreshes the spirit.