Pain simply stated, is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. Naturopathy’s goal is to relieve the causes of pain not just the symptoms. Many of the causes of common painful conditions are unique to the female body. For example, hormonal imbalances related to PMS or menopausal conditions, candidiasis, allergies and low thyroid can cause or aggravate neck and back pain, arthritis, joint pain and / or muscle cramping. A woman's health can also be jeopardized by certain activities of daily living (or the lack of activity). Carrying a purse, a child, or groceries on one side of the body over a prolonged time can cause spinal and musculature imbalances. These imbalances can cause pain between the shoulder blades, neck and lower back pain, and numbness, tingling and pain down the arms and legs. A lack of exercise and stretching, poor muscle tone and poor posture can also result in pain and stiffness. Maintaining the same posture or position for many hours of doing repetitive movements or motions can cause tendonitis, sprains, strains, or discomfort in the joints. Improper sleeping habits and using an improper pillow can cause neck and shoulder pain. Physical problems caused by a previous injury can be reactivated by a whole host of physical maladies including rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease). After obtaining your case history, testing for nutritional and other imbalances, the physician can often reveal the actual causes of many painful conditions. In many cases, the physician must discover and treat pre-existing conditions as well as the hormonal imbalances, recognizing that the body functions as an integrated system. It should also be recognized that chronic anxiety, stress and tension could build up in soft tissues of the body over time. These factors can make muscles feel hard, tight, knotty and tender to the touch. Chronic coffee drinking and high sugar intake can cause over stimulation and make matters worse.
Hormonal imbalances in women are something that can occur in life, especially later on in life; but can affect women at any age. These hormonal imbalances can, and usually do, translate into a source of migraine headaches. This is actually very common.
There are many causes and things that are related to what we humans experience as pain. When we are damaged physically, nerve endings feel pain because of substances called leukotrienes. Those nerve endings can have a narcotic effect that covers up the pain response and blocks it at the nerve synapse. Or it can have a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory effect that stops the release of leukotrienes. Those are the inflaming things that also cause pain and swelling in our bodies. The painful component is moderated by many other factors: age, sex, race, how hot or cold the environment is, how used to pain we are, what our attitude is toward pain. Many things come into play when a human body experiences discomfort. The Chinese had a way a blocking pain through the meridians where they just stuck needles and that facilitated the flow of energy through the meridian. The feeling was that the injury caused the blockage in that energy. Homeopaths with a sprained ankle or broken joint would give a homeopathic remedy. One common homeopathic remedy for acute pain is called Arnica. Arnica just rebalances the body and many times the pain and swelling will go away. The body is still injured and the person must treat himself or herself like they are still injured. In some cases, the pain and swelling serves a purpose, that when taken away by an external agent, is not the best thing for the body. There are a variety of nervine substances like Valerian, Passiflora and Hops and Jamaican Dogwood that nature has given us that perform different functions with the nervous system. Instead of blocking the pain response, some of them are muscle relaxers, and some of them tone the nervous system and make it more able to handle discomfort. They work in a much more tonic fashion than some of the more pharmaceutical agents available today. There is also Willow Bark, which is chemically very similar to aspirin. There are also several pain scenarios that are affected by digestion: whether the liver works properly or whether fatty acid action is proceeding through the appropriate biochemical pathways. It seems that fatty acids are precursors to inflammatory products. By favoring certain food sources you can diminish pain for certain conditions. It is also known that pain can be handled through altered states of consciousness.
The traditional way to alter consciousness is to totally depress the central nervous system, which knocks out most of the person’s perception of pain. Different hypnotic type states can bring about a profound relaxation and unconscious period where the nervous system, in many cases, can be selectively turned off. There are various states of hypnosis: to some very mild suggested states to quite profound states. One of the more common hypnotic conditions can be witnessed watching our children watch television. Do I need to say more? In summary, pain is there to tell us something. We could have a broken bone, or maybe we are mistreating our digestion. The Naturopathic Physician should ideally try to find the cause and look for the reason why the person has the pain.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided for Educational Purposes Only and has NOT been designed to diagnose, treat or cure any health conditions. Please consult a qualified Health Care Professional with Nutritional Training to diagnose your health conditions and avoid self-diagnosis. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration have not evaluated statements about these health topics or any suggested product compositions.
