How many people use herbal remedies instead of medication from gps ??? I really am considering coming off my Daily med's & just take my morphine for bad days & using herbal remedies for chronic pain & anxiety. I take nortrypyiline 20mg at night & dihydrocodine during the day along with paracetamol & turmeric capsules but the med's are not helping very much & are highly addictive.
Are there any of you guys who take herbal remedies on a regular basis??
Do they work ? I recently purchased valerian tincture & im having that at night in my lavender tea I'm noticing that I fall asleep a lot easier already.
Any other recommendations for herbs & how to use them?
Even if I can not take as many dihydrocodine would help tremendously
I do want to wean off the norttrypyiline as I feel it isn't helping I really hate taking pills but am in a great deal of pain everyday
Thanks guys 😊
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Ktchard
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I have been trying for decades to get off the meds! After three days I am usually crying and not able to get out of bed. However, following nearly a year (!) of trying injections followed by rhysolisis I am now day 4 without.... I am trying to substitute with tumeric but it doesn't seem to do anything plus its more expensive than a prescription! Anyway, I am still in pain and super stiff but it still feels a bit like a mini miracle and Im not crying or stuck in bed. The best of all would I feel be a cannabidiol like CBD which does not contain the head affecting ingredients but has some good research as an anti pain 'medication' and anti-inflammatory. It is not easy to obtain in the UK and currently involves silly things like having to get a private prescription and go to Amsterdam although I think even the Dutch are stopping their open door attitude to cannabis. You can get the oil on the internet but it didn't do anything for me...
keep us posted if you find anything else that works. Best wishes
I stopped taking all prescription drugs for pain because not only were they ineffective but have unpleasant side effects and taken long term do damage to the liver.
Instead I take valerian to help me sleep and krantom from time to time which really takes the edge off the pain and has no side effects.
It is still available on line at the moment but could be effected by a ban on so called legal highs.
Krantom is a natural herb from Bali and Maylasia which you can buy in powder form or capsules. It tastes foul but really does give pain relief.
Sativex is a canabis based mouth spray but most doctors won't prescribe it because it is expensive but is apparently good for pain n relief.
I live in France and I haven't been able to find a doctor to prescribe it.
Doctors are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies so are reluctant to prescribe natural remedies I fear.
I would certainly recommend you check out Krantom although some people on this forum will warn you against it even though they haven't tried it themselves.
Hi Suzy I have just looked up Krantom and it is banned in the UK it's classed as a legal high. Like you my pain meds no longer work and I'm looking at something to replace it, I had acupuncture but very expensive
Thankyou Suzie I will do my research on herbal remedies at the moment I'm weaning off nortrypyiline it's horrible but the valerian tincture is helping I take regular turmeric capsules & cod liver oil.
I suffer from chronic neck & back pain one due to trauma at the age of 15 now have scoliosis & many prolapsed disks in my neck osteoarthritis & nerve impingement.
The best pain relief I have ever had (apart from changing my diet to cure arthritis) was cranial osteopathy. Next to that was acupuncture.
On the first aid shelf I have lavender, ginger, capsaisin, cayenne pepper and black pepper, heat pads and cool pads, a tens machine (which I don't think a lot of because I can never reach the bit I need to treat when placing the pads) and a massage cushion. I also have a memory foam neck cushion for those times when holding my head up requires too much strain.
Do your turmeric tablets contain piperine? Piperine is the active ingredient in black pepper, curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric. The latter requires the former to work at its best.
Ghee (grass fed) can be used as a theraputic oil for massage with anti-inflammatory benefits amongst others. It can also be eaten in order to work from the inside, as can coconut oil. You can add essential oils, herbs and spices to provide additional benefit. Ghee does smell of butter, unfortunately if you don't like it, unless you buy the 100x washed ghee (though you can actually make both forms at home to save money).
You can get CBD in drop form and capsules on amazon but I have no idea how good it is, the reviews are mixed, though the capsules come in different strengths - up to 100mg if memory serves. This site might give you more information on the current legal status clear-uk.org/legal-medicina... (I'd check myself but my connection is too slow to work tonight)
There was another similar post on here earlier today that may have some alternative suggestions healthunlocked.com/painconc...
Cranial osteopathy – a gentle technique, practitioners claim to feel a subtle pulse in the fluid surrounding the brain.
Craniosacral therapy - a system intended to relieve pain and tension by gentle manipulations of the skull regarded as harmonizing with a natural rhythm in the central nervous system.
Probably basically the same thing but I was going to an osteopath. He had tried bone crunching and that wasn't working so he suggested 'cranial osteopathy' and I have always called it that since. I don't really care what it was called, it was wonderful
Hi linlow thanks for replying as regards to curing your arthritis with diet did you cut out all night shade plants? I love peppers tomatoes and chillis I would hate to cut those from my diet.
I do take 95% curcurmin turmeric capsules with added black pepper.
Also high strength cod liver oil with vitamin D.
I love aromatherapy I have rose & lavender essential oils here but I don't use them as much as maybe I should
I used to have acupuncture but my gp has stopped because of funding 😯
I'm taking valerian tincture at the moment to help wean from the antidepressants as they don't help & I hate pumping my body full of chemicals
Next will be a detox from the dihydrocodine but Il keep some spare incase I get bad patches which has been happening frequently
I'm not sure what else to do I might try the cannibinol it seems interesting it seems to help some people.
I drink green tea eat honey & cinnamon I v heard they are all good for arthritis.
What would be a good diet for someone with osteoarthritis??
Tarnation! I just spent ages putting an answer together for you, went to correct an error and ended up losing the lot That is the third time this week I have done it, I am really gonna have to get my head in gear or sort this keyboard out.
Anyway the gist of it was...
for various reasons I ended up on a meat free diet (from someone who hated cooked vegetables and would have happily lived on meat alone) and sometime later discovered that the pain was gone - I had got so used to ignoring it, because I wasn't watching out for it, I never even noticed it leave.
There are various reasons that osteoarthritis develops, not all of them diet. Cures, when they are achieved are just as multivarious. And I had gone through a multitude of them before hitting on the diet by pure chance. Ovo-vegetarian mayoclinic.org/healthy-life... (though I am Lacto-Ovo) is now a recognised means of control as red meats are one of the antagonists as are carbohydrates - particularly sugar, nightshades, grains - particularly wheat, omega-6, diet - obviously, weight, genetics, injury and more.
If it’s red, orange, blue, or green, chances are it’s loaded with antioxidants, compounds that neutralize rogue molecules called free radicals that are thought to interfere with cartilage repair and rebuilding. Sweet, juicy mangoes, peaches, oranges, and watermelons are packed with betacryptoxanthin, a tongue-twisting antioxidant and one of a pair of joint-pampering compounds that lower the risk of arthritis by an impressive 20 to 40 percent a University of Manchester, United Kingdom study of 25,000 people. The other antioxidant, zeaxanthin, is found in spinach, sweet corn, peas and orange peppers. People with the highest blood levels of both of these antioxidants cut their arthritis risk even further, by 50 percent.
Good old vitamin C is joint friendly, too. Eating plenty of strawberries, oranges, red bell peppers, and broccoli – all loaded with C – could help slow the development of knee pain if you already have osteoarthritis, say Boston University researchers. In one study, people who got the most C were three times less likely to have arthritis knee pain than people who got the least.' - see your peppers feature twice
There are some good ideas in here sheknows.com/health-and-wel... but I don't necessarily agree with all levels of the food pyramid she suggests. I think that grains make up way to high a proportion and there is a dearth of fat, plus too heavy a reliance on fish which I don't think is the food source it used to be (too much of it is farmed and should be avoided) but it is still a good article.
Research has proven that the Mediterranean diet arthritis.org/living-with-a... can stop the progress of osteoarthritis but I don't know how well it cures it and may be too high in grains. People certainly report reversing the condition on the LCHF diet dietdoctor.com/ though, as with everything else, not everyone. I think that The Wahls Protocol diet might be worth a look as it is designed to fight autoimmunity chriskresser.com/treating-m.... And finally, having spent ages racking my brains as to what it was, The Real Meal Revolution realmealrevolution.com/ - very similar to LCHF.
Bear in mind that just about all processed foods contain one or other form of sugar. And sugar contains fructose jasn.asnjournals.org/conten... which is inflammatory. Sugar itself is 50% fructose, honey is 40% but other forms range as high as Agave with 90 to 95% fructose. In other words avoid processed foods and cut sugar out of your tea (if you take it).
Thankyou for the wealth of information! There's so much to read upon my trouble is giving up honey or at least limiting it & I dont think I'd have much trouble giving up meat as long as I can still eat salmon & some eggs but I eat very little red meat as it is anyway I think Il try to cut out caffeine I love my morning coffee but I know it's an inflammatory food also cut out the milk I might try the hazelnut or almond milk for breakfast.
The thing is changing the habits of a lifetime I'm sure I can do it as long as I'm prepared.
Thankyou ever so much !!
Have you heard about eat for your blood type? Apparently I'm A + which is best for a vegetarian diet anyways.
funnily enough the blood type diet was in the original copy and I am the meat eating O - what a pity I'm allergic to it
Take a look at dandelion coffee amazon.co.uk/JustIngredient.... You can buy tubs of instant amazon.co.uk/Symingtons-Ins... but it is adulterated and way too sweet for my liking. I prefer buying the roasted root, grinding it and using it as a filter coffee - though caffeine free you'd be surprised how similar the flavour (though maybe not quite a full on deep roast). Some people boil the roast root as is but I have never tried that. Dandelion has wonderful benefits.
There are benefits to honey - so long as it is the real stuff (preferably local) NOT processed. A little sweetness as an occasional treat, or for medicinal purposes can be absorbed by cutting out another source - say, for instance, no apples today - just beware of it sneaking in to every meal. Serving it with high fibre will temper its negative value somewhat just as apple fibre does.
Something else I missed was looking at glycaemic load foodrenegade.com/glycemic-i.... It is a far better measure of how it will effect your insulin levels than glycaemic index- and the fuller for longer factor
Did I mention kefir anywhere? Kefir also has anti-inflammatory properties and one of its added benefits is that it cuts cravings for sweets and carbs regenerate-wellness.com/kef....
Remember that you are doing this to resolve a health issue. If it works and you still wish to you can add some of those banned foods back in one at a time to make sure you can identify any that cause a problem.
Being lacto-ovo milk/dairy was never a problem for me (except along with cooked veg I wasn't very keen on it). Do not do low fat. No carbs is fine but you need the fat to give you energy (it supplies at least twice that of carbs or protein) and to oil your joints. Do remove vegetable oils, unless cold pressed, and swap them for ghee, butter, coconut oil, olive oil, flax-seed oil or similar
Beware going cold turkey, it may result in a few digestive problems you'd rather live without. I'd be inclined to phase over a week to 10 days.
oh, and start the day on lemon water but use the skin as well as the pulp - not just the juice spine-health.com/forum/disc....
HI I CANT TAKE ANY OF THESE PAIN KILLER TABS IT MAKES ME VERY SICK .I APPLY ARNICA GEL TO MY ACHING JOINTS AND MUSCLES.I USE WARMING ONE.BLUE CAMPHOR ONE.ITS ALL NATURAL.I AM NEXT TRYING DEAD SEA MINERALS FOR BATHINGX
I think most of us would like to get off these prescribed meds and the side effects they have. I started to look at Turmeric but when I looked into it people who are having prescribed meds for Diabetes are advised not to take so it`s a no no for me. We must do our research before we turn to alternative meds. Good luck everyone.
I am definitely a member of the Valerian Fan Club. It's great to help you off into a lovely, high quality sleep. Can I just say though - lots of herbal alternatives have been mentioned in this thread - if you're planning on using any, it's a good idea to check that they don't interact badly with whatever meds you're currently taking
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That is the third time this week I have done it, I am really gonna have to get my head in gear or sort this keyboard out.
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