by Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D.
A Proven Program
to Get You Pain Free
I can summarize what I was taught about chronic pain in medical school in two sentences: Use Tylenol and/or Motrin—like medications. If the patient has cancer, you can use narcotics if you have to. It is no surprise then that pain patients flock to alternative therapists so they can get relief. Fortunately, most chronic pain can now be effectively treated!
Pain is not the enemy!
Pain is often simply an important indicator
of underlying problems that need
to be taken care of. In fact, pain can be
viewed as the red, flashing, warning light
on your dashboard telling you that something
urgently needs your attention. To
simply mask the pain with medication
would be like covering up your “low oil”
warning light because it was annoying
you. Therefore, in addition to teaching
you how to turn off the pain signal, we
will also help you to understand what the
pain is trying to tell you what your body
needs. When these are addressed, the
pain usually goes away! While the underlying
problems that need attention are
being addressed, it is then also very
important to turn off/mask the pain so
that you can be comfortable.
So how do I treat the underlying problems
causing the pain?
There are usually four key areas that need
to be treated to eliminate muscle/
myofascial and nerve pain. It helps to
remember the acronym “SHIN.” This
stands for Sleep, Hormonal Support,
Treating Infections and Nutritional
Support. We will briefly review each of
these areas and natural tools that will
make it easier to treat them.
1. NUTRITIONAL INADEQUACIES. First you need to give the body the nutritional
building blocks it needs to heal.
Otherwise it cannot even begin to get
well. The B vitamins, antioxidants, magnesium,
zinc, selenium and amino acids
(proteins) are especially important.
There is a product that contains over 50
key nutrients in one scoop of a good
tasting powder and one capsule taken
daily. It is called the Energy Revitalization
System (from Enzymatic Therapy) and
supplies an excellent, easy and affordable
foundation for nutritional support
for almost everyone—including those
with pain. It is easy to use and literally
replaces the need for 35 capsules of
nutritional supplements a day. We have
even seen patients’ chronic pain go away
simply with this nutritional support.
Next, although the powder has most
of what the body needs, joints require
other specific nutrients for healing in
addition to what’s in the vitamin powder.
So for arthritis, get Glucosamine Sulfate
(500 mg 3 times a day) and consider
MSM (1.5-3 grams a day). Within six
weeks, most people’s arthritis improves
markedly and these actually help to heal
your joints. For nerve pain, add lipoic
acid 300 mg 3 times a day for at least six
weeks.
2. SLEEP. Pain patients frequently have insomnia which is often profound. This contributes to pain. Your body’s repair cycle occurs during sleep and you need 8–9 hours of sleep a night for optimal healing. Put differently, your pain will simply not go away until you regularly get 8–9 hours of deep sleep a night.
Many natural remedies that are very effective for sleep also directly help pain. My favorite is the combination of six herbals contained in the Revitalizing Sleep Formula by Enzymatic Therapy. Other natural remedies that help sleep, when taken at bedtime, are magnesium (e.g. 100–300 milligrams), calcium (500–600 mg), 5-HTP (100–300 mg takes 6 weeks to work), and/or melatonin (3/10–1 mg) at bedtime.
3. HORMONAL DEFICIENCIES. Most lab norms are based on healthy hypothalamic function, which is often not present in chronic pain. Hormonal status needs to be assessed by symptoms and physical exam, despite normal lab tests, and treated accordingly. It may be necessary to treat with:
A. Thyroid (Armour thyroid)—if you are tired, achy and cold intolerant, or if you have weight gain and/or brain fog. Even two of these symptoms warrant a trial of natural thyroid hormone regardless of your blood tests.
B. Adrenal (e.g. adrenal glandulars such as Adrenal Stress End, and DHEA)—consider treatment if you get irritable when you are hungry (hypoglycemia), get dizzy when you stand, crash with stress or if you have low blood pressure.
C. Natural ovarian and testicular hormones—if you are a woman whose pain
gets worse the few days before your period, consider natural estrogen (which is much safer than pregnant horse urine—Premarin). If you have low libido and a low normal testosterone blood test, it is reasonable to consider treatment with natural testosterone in both men and women. When symptoms suggest the need for them, these natural hormones have been found to be fairly safe and very beneficial for pain and energy when used in low doses.
4. UNUSUAL INFECTIONS.
Although there are many, clinically we have found that yeast overgrowth is the most important infection to treat for. Avoid sugar, use Acidophilus Pearls and consider natural antifungals or the medications Nystatin plus Diflucan. When yeast is properly treated, chronic sinusitis and spastic colon will also usually go away.
Using fibromyalgia as a model for widespread myofascial pain, our
research team did a placebo-controlled
study treating sleep, hormonal deficiencies,
infections and nutritional deficiencies.
The average improvement in quality
of life was 90 percent. The majority of
patients no longer even quali.ed for the
diagnosis of fibromyalgia after treatment.
In addition, an editorial in the
Journal of the American Academy of Pain
Management noted that our treatment
protocol is an “excellent and highly effective
part of the standard of practice for
the treatment of fibromyalgia and
myofascial pain syndrome.” The full text
of our study and the editorial can be seen
at www.vitality101.com. You’ll be amazed
how even pain that has lasted decades
can go away quickly when these underlying
problems are taken care of.
What if pain persists after treating
these areas?
Although my new book Pain-free 1-2-3!
goes into detail about how to eliminate
dozens of the most common types of
pain (e.g. headaches, back pain, arthritis,
neuropathic pain, abdominal pains,
carpal tunnel, etc.) space does not
allow detailed discussions of all of
these in this article. There are literally
hundreds of natural and prescription
therapies that can be tailored to your
specific type of pain. For more
information on over 250 natural and prescription treatments (by category), including dosing and other patient instructions, click on the “treatment protocol” link on my Web site (bottom left at www.vitality101.com).
 Three of the most effective
natural general pain herbals
are willow bark, Boswellia and
tart cherry. All three of these
can be found in combination
in End Pain by Enzymatic
Therapy. Studies show them
to work like and to be as or
more effective than Motrin
related medicines and/or
COX-2 inhibitors like Vioxx
and Celebrex, but much safer
and less expensive. Let’s
briefly look at these three
herbals.
Willow bark is the original source of
aspirin, but when used as the entire herb
it has been found to be much safer and
more effective. Many studies have been
done using willow bark and they consistently
show its effectiveness in reducing
pain. For example, in two studies of 661
patients with severe chronic low back
pain, willow bark extract with 240 mg of
salicin left 40 percent pain free after four
weeks, with improvement being evident
after only one week of treatment. In those
receiving standard orthopedic care and
Motrin for four weeks, only 18 percent
were pain free. No adverse effects on the
stomach lining (e.g. indigestion, ulcers,
etc.) were observed with willow bark, in
contrast to aspirin. Willow bark extract
has also been shown to be as effective as
Vioxx for osteoarthritis.
Boswellia, also known as Frankincense,
has been used in traditional Ayurvedic
medicine for centuries. It has been
shown in studies to be helpful for both
rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis,
with the pain index falling by 90 percent
after eight weeks with a similarly dramatic
increase in function. Boswellia has
also been demonstrated to have significant
anti-inflammatory properties, being
helpful in asthma and colitis as well as
pain. A common dose is 350 mg three
times a day.
Cherry fruit contains compounds
which inhibit COX-1(inflammation) as
effectively as ibuprofen and tart cherries
possess both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
In addition, though we have focused
on metabolic therapies, do not forget
how powerful manipulative therapies,
acupuncture, body and energy work, etc.
can be in treating pain—especially when
combined with these therapies. You do
not have to be in pain any more!
Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D. is medical director
of the Annapolis Center for Effective
CFS/Fibromyalgia Therapies in Annapolis,
Maryland (410-266-6958), author of the
best-selling book From Fatigued to Fantastic!
and the recently released Pain Free 1-2-3- A
Proven Program to Get YOU Pain Free! His
Web site is: www.Vitality101.com. He takes
no money from companies whose products
he recommends and 100 percent of his royalties
for products he makes go to charity.
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