Pain Management

October 30, 2018 Latest News

The Opioid Epidemic

At the heart of America’s epidemic of opioid abuse is a medical system designed to entrap and addict patients to pain medications. A different strategy of pain management, one that would help resolve pain rather than temporarily suppress it, is desperately needed. To change behaviors as well as treatment approaches, it is necessary to understand the importance of pain in the recovery process, and to recognize how current pain management strategies worsen pain, prolong inflammation and slow recovery: all of which fuels greater risk of side effects and addiction. Homeopathy is a viable system that can reduce use of these medicines and speed recovery from the underlying conditions causing pain.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAIDs) are the most commonly utilized medicines in the world. Ever since Bayer, the venerable German pharmaceutical company first introduced, and made its fortune in the late 1890s by commercializing, both aspirin and heroine as cough, cold and pain remedies for children, both these drugs have been part of our culture.

The opiate epidemic, a newly declared national public health emergency, is deeply embedded in America’s love affair with NSAIDs. These prescription and nonprescription medicines are part of a society-wide drug addiction, marked by polypharmacy, pharmaceutical overuse and abuse.

Medication Nation

While U.S. healthcare remains the most expensive, and sophisticated system in the world, with expenses surpassing the economies of most developed nations, it ranks close to the bottom of the list in terms of many important health indices.

American medicines, prescribed according to the “standard of care”, are the 5th leading cause death in the U.S. today and medical error is the 3rd. Many authorities suggest that only a small fraction (5% or less) of these reactions are reported. Even if we included all potential adverse drug reactions (ADRs) we would still only be referring to the “tip of the iceberg”, since ADRs don’t include iatrogenic-induced conditions that are set in motion by many conventional medical treatments. This is evident in the massive epidemic of chronic inflammatory disease in U.S. society. The total scope of drug induced illness, disability and death is unimaginably large.

One of the fundamental problems with U.S. healthcare is that it operates as the distribution arm of a quadrillion dollar multinational for-profit medical industry that includes pharmaceutical, insurance, patient care, academic and research institutions, which generate stunning profits at the expense of society’s most sick and vulnerable. These corporate entities exert powerfully coordinated campaigns that control almost every aspect of the healthcare market from research, development, marketing, management and delivery of products and services; they control education and training of healthcare providers, and heavily lobby for self-preserving legislation that sets the “standard of care” and dictates conventional treatment recommendations. The entire U.S. healthcare system has been hijacked and is under the control of interests bent on extracting profit from every exploitable sector.

Americans are the most heavily medicated and over-treated society on earth, collectively consuming more medications and utilizing more health care resources, per capita, than any other nation. Our society is in the midst of an epidemic of over-diagnosis and overtreatment unprecedented in the history of mankind: never have so many people taken so many medications, or received so many medical interventions, most of which are almost entirely lacking in scientific merit.

The opioid epidemic is a single small example of how corporate financial interests have driven conventional medical standards to create and propagate a huge problem of drug abuse, addiction, disability and death that killed more than 33,000 people in 2015 alone.

NSAIDs

The opiate problem begins with NSAIDs and analgesics. Prescription and nonprescription medication use in the U.S. is currently accepted as part of the “standard of care” of pain management. Parents refusing to medicate their children have sometimes been reported for child neglect or abuse. Analgesic and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are routinely advised for self-limited conditions beginning in infancy and childhood.

NSAIDs are the most frequently used, and best-selling medicines in the world. Nearly 100,000 people are hospitalized and at least 16,500 die every year in the U.S. alone, as a result of fatal NSAID induced gastrointestinal bleeding, kidney failure, liver and lung damage. NSAIDs are strongly associated with increased risk of heart attacks, heart failure, and hypertension. They increase the risk of developing asthma, and their routine use is associated with delayed recovery from infectious illness and musculoskeletal injuries, leading to chronic disability. NSAIDs are associated with hearing loss, allergic reactions and miscarriages.

These medicines are recommended by pediatricians from birth onwards, despite solid evidence that they cause considerable harm. Their cavalier use sets the stage for drug abuse in later life.

Americans rely heavily on medications to fight pain. It is one of the most feared symptoms of any illness. Pain is poorly understood, and it is a common phobia, and a terror for many. Behavior around pain tends to be dominated by irrationality and emotion, and rarely is it handled calmly or with knowledge of what benefits it really provides.

Pain

“No pain, no gain”
– Anonymous

Pain is a subjective experience that cannot be physically measured or accurately quantified. It is a cognitive interpretation of physical signals sent by the body to the brain.

The experience of pain depends on a wide variety of physical and nonphysical factors that affect different people in different ways. Sensitivity varies by individual, society, culture, ethnic group, and prior experience. Pain perception is altered by emotional state, level of consciousness, physical activity, attitude, and belief.

Pain can be completely modified, and even extinguished, using a wide variety of nonchemical interventional methods, including meditation, prayer, hypnosis, psychotherapy, biofeedback, bodywork, acupuncture, acupressure and homeopathy.

Most pain is results from inflammation, which is an important tool of the innate immune system. Inflammation (and pain) helps the body recover from acute illness and injury. It is one of the most important defenses of the innate immune system, and without it, recovery from infection and acute injury would be impossible.
Elimination or suppression of acute inflammation (and pain) disengages and impairs the innate immune system, and delays recovery from many acute injuries and illnesses. Suppressing the perception of pain (and inflammation) with medications disengages the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, and interferes with their coherent and coordinated efforts to resolve acute infections and repair injuries.

Understanding that pain performs important physiologic functions that integrate the body’s self-healing capacities enables us to manage pain in more holistic and comprehensive fashion. This allows us to rely on pain as an indicator informing us that when it is relieved, so is inflammation and recovery is complete.

Pain Management

Suppressing acute pain backfires since it is physiologically critical in promoting a healthy and speedy recovery from many conditions. Pain suppression also increases psychological (and sometimes physical) dependence, and fosters the misperception that these conditions can only be managed (although never resolved) by using drugs. Both physical and psychological dependence ultimately lead to the replacement of NSAIDs with stronger medicines: sometimes opiates.

Once opiate medications are utilized the body quickly becomes inured to their use since they trigger both an upgrade in sensitivity and an increase in the number of pain receptors throughout the body. The combination of these effects increases pain sensitivity and awareness and decreases medication effectiveness. This means that more pain medicine will be needed, over time, to maintain the same levels of pain control.

These characteristics combine to make opiates some of the most addictive medicines known (along with benzodiazepines ), with side effects that are much more severe and unforgiving than NSAIDs. Particularly concerning is the narrow margin of safety between medication effectiveness and risk of respiratory suppression. The margin gets even thinner as medication dosages increase, causing overdose and death as a result of effects on the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and respiratory centers.

Even opiate withdrawal causes severe, and sometimes life-threatening reactions, but almost always results in rebounding levels of pain, psychological and emotional distress and suffering.

Neither NSAID, analgesic or opiate pain suppression leads directly to its resolution, only a greater likelihood that adverse reactions, and chronic suffering, or death, will result.

A better way to “manage” pain is to treat its cause by helping the body resolve to the inflammation behind it. This can frequently be accomplished by using appropriate interventions, like homeopathy.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a viable system of medicine that can reduce use of pain medicines and speed recovery from the underlying conditions that cause pain.

Internationally, homeopathy is a well-recognized and utilized medical modality, used by more than 500 million patients and hundreds of thousands of physicians worldwide. It is relatively unknown in America, where it is used by less than 3% of the population. Homeopathy takes a radically different approach, particularly toward pain management, that frequently produces superior outcomes.

Homeopathy helps resolve inflammation caused by injuries and illnesses, by promoting recovery from the underlying conditions. Homeopathic medicines contain nanoparticles which act via hormesis, and target physiologically active systems facilitating repair and recovery. Recovery from these acute conditions lowers inflammation, resolves pain, and reduces the risk of developing a chronic condition.

Homeopathy is safe, efficacious, and inexpensive. It is economically advantageous because it causes far fewer complications, improves outcomes and generates improved quality of life.

Fundamental to the homeopathic approach is recognition that pain is much more than a troublesome symptom, but an important sign that arises secondarily from illness or injury. Pain is a byproduct of the innate immune system as it actively organizes and orchestrates systemic healing responses. Homeopathic treatments augment the innate immune system and the healing response.

Homeopathic research is quite limited, but some studies do demonstrate its efficacy in painful conditions.

A European study of patients with chronic low back pain demonstrated that homeopathy significantly reduced pain more effectively than physiotherapy.

In another, the homeopathic medicine Arnica montana significantly relieved pain 1 and 2 weeks after carpal tunnel surgery.

In cases of acute otitis media homeopathic treatment relieved pain in 72% of children within 12 hours, and 2.4 times faster than placebo controls.

The homeopathic medicine Aconitum napellus was found to reduce pain and postoperative agitation in children at a rate three times faster than placebo.

The homeopathic treatment of trigeminal neuralgia resulted in statistically significant reduction of pain intensity and attack frequency during a four-month evaluation period.

In an observational study of patients with migraine headaches both mean and median scores of all quality of life dimensions rose in a highly statistically significant manner. The strongest improvements took place in ‘bodily pain’ and ‘vitality’ with more than 60% of participants experienced improvement in pain, the limitations caused by pain, limitations of social activities and health in general.

There are numerous examples of pain relief and disease resolution using homeopathic medicines in the treatment of painful acute and chronic illnesses. Several studies have evaluated these effects, although much more research is needed.

Utilizing homeopathy as a first-line modality in the treatment of common inflammatory and painful conditions provides many benefits. Acutely painful syndromes resolve faster when anti-inflammatory medicines are avoided. Risk of developing side effects from these drugs is also avoided. When homeopathic medicines are utilized there is less chance of developing a chronic pain syndrome, which reduces the risk of overusing pain medicines or becoming addicted to opiates.

Conclusion

Our nation suffers from an iatrogenic induced healthcare crisis marked by the flagrant over-diagnosis and over treatment of many conditions, including pain. Opioid overuse and abuse is just one example of how conventional medication management strategies have worsened these conditions over time, causing acute conditions to become chronic, without achieving resolution of the underlying conditions causing pain.

The current “standard of care” of conventional medicine incorporates NSAIDs and analgesics from a very early age and establishes a mind-set of reliance on medications, that increases the risk of using of opioids, years later.

Pain plays an important role in the recovery from illness and injury, and when it is suppressed, so is its recovery and healing, prolonging the experience of pain. Many acute conditions suppressed in this fashion will become chronic, increasing the need for chronic medications.

Conventional pain management increases pain perception, pain medication use and risk of dependence. In many cases, this leads to opiate use and increased risk of adverse and tragic outcomes. Most patients with chronic pain syndromes suffer from a “revolving door” effect, generated by the actions of these drugs on their physiological receptors and results in increased demand for pain medications over time.

Homeopathy has a worldwide track record of utility in the resolution of acute and chronic painful conditions. It is a safe and effective medical modality that should be used more broadly within the U.S. Studies have shown that is can be effective in reducing pain and resolving the inflammation responsible for it.

The current epidemic of opiate abuse should be a “wake-up call” for U.S. society to recognize how conventional treatment strategies are failing, by offering little more than the risk of developing chronic illness and lifelong dependence on harmful medications. By continuing to utilize this conventional approach, in light of alternatives like homeopathy, we are collectively deluding ourselves and should not be surprise that this road is frequently a dead-end.

 

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Pain Management