Managing Chronic Pain with Naturopathic Medicine
Naturopathic Medicine has much more to offer than painkillers for chronic pain. Chronic pain affects approximately one in five Canadian adults and even more seniors. Chronic pain has both physical and psychological (eg, hopelessness, depression) impacts. Both of which I have experienced myself as a consequence of a low back and right hip injury in 2013.
How do you know if your pain is chronic?
The pain has lasted beyond the usual healing time of this type of injury. Often chronic pain is over 3 months.
Treat the Cause of the Chronic Pain
Naturopathic approaches used, depending on the type of pain and your individualized health needs, are:
Reduce inflammation
Restore and maintain healthy movement
Nourish and hydrate connective tissue
Stabilize joints
Nourish mitochondria
The great thing about Naturopathic Medicine is that we have so many tools in our toolkit to address complex problems like chronic pain in the body. These are some of the tools a Naturopathic Doctor can use to help relieve chronic pain:
Botanical medicine
Boswellia and curcumin are potent herbal anti-inflammatories. Gotu kola helps remodel damaged connective tissue, as well as lower stress, improve cognitive function and boost mood. The great thing about many natural remedies is that they have side benefits instead of side effects.
Nutrition
Removing food allergens and sensitivities reduces inflammation. Good nutrition is healing because it gives the body all of the building blocks it needs to repair itself and thrive.
Acupuncture
It's ironic that doctors may at times use needles to reduce pain. Acupuncture stimulates endorphin release and reduces pain centres in the brain.
Sclerotherapy (scar therapy) or Neural Therapy
Scars are interference patterns in the body that can disrupt both nerve signals and blood flow. The injection of a local anaesthetic (such as procaine) into these scars can help break up the scar tissue and return normal blood flow and nerve function to the area. For example, people who experience ongoing shoulder pain after gallbladder surgery can get relief from treatment of their gallbladder surgical scar. Right shoulder pain is a referral pattern for an inflamed gallbladder. In my practice, I have seen improvement or resolution of pain, numbness and immobility from everything from C-section scars to a dog bite scars.
Prolotherapy
A major injury or repeated injuries to a joint can leave it unstable. This instability makes the joint vulnerable to further injury and often pain. Prolotherapy is the injection of dextrose into damaged connective tissues to help return them to normal length and function.
Ozone therapy
Ozone gas injected into joints can be regenerative to the connective tissue and has been shown in studies to be effective in osteoarthritis.
The best treatment for your chronic pain will depend on what type of pain you are experiencing and its underlying causes. This is where the expertise of a licensed Naturopathic Doctor can help guide you and provide the necessary treatments to get you out of chronic pain and back to enjoying your life pain-free.
