Tag: NSAIDS

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

Pain Management

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Last week I questioned the wisdom of masking pain, asking if I might be missing a diagnosis by taking my Pain Relief Complex. Following up with you after 72 hours of no herbal pain tablets, I can tell you that taking them alleviated discomfort. Not taking them left me with the discomfort of aching hip joints, sore knee and ankle.  The numbness in my right leg came and went, mostly went.   I experienced a tough workout at the hands of JR at the Xgym, walked four miles up and down the hills of West Seattle, sat at the computer, drove the car, and attended meetings all without debilitating pain.  I was happy at the end of the experiment to take a Pain Relief Complex before going to bed to insure a pain-free sleep.

I visited my chiropractor, David Kirdahy, during this hiatus.  He found the usual pelvis miss-alignment, clicking and prodding everything back in place.  He wondered if I might have a neuropathy in the right leg and foot.  I was not able to give him specific cues as to the center of the numbness. It is hard to help with pain management when I can’t identify exactly where the pain is.

 

In answer to the questions, is there anything you can’t do because of numbness or pain? I had to answer, no.

 

I am left with the annoying unanswered question, in spite of advice from a neurologist and a nurse who read my blog post, if my activities are not impaired, why seek further diagnosis?  I did that already in May of last year and have the report from the sports medicine doctor at the Polyclinic.  Clearly, taking Pain Relief Complex is not covering up a condition that may need attention.  I seem to be able to handle my pain management with all the measures I already use.

I wanted to show you a schematic of the COX 1 and COX2 pathways, but the pictures and science is too complicated for me to introduce here.  I don’t understand it well enough to comment scientifically.  I do remember the schematic the Shaklee scientist used to describe how Pain Relief Complex works. You can explore this for yourself if you are interested.

My intention here is to look at the more typical medications prescribed and over the counter that people use for pain management.  The wisdom in the alternative world is that pain medication masks conditions and that pain is an indicator of something that needs medical attention.  I agree with that, hence my experiment. What I have been taking for pain did alleviate discomfort.  Stopping it did not reveal a condition that seems to require immediate attention.

 

Type of pain

Every one experiences pain differently.  Some of us push through.  Others of us want to eliminate the slightest hint of discomfort.  Pain is a communicator from the body to us, telling us something is amiss.  Pain management is different for each of us.  If it weren’t for pain, we wouldn’t know to take our finger off the hot stove, or to rest with our foot elevated after spraining an ankle.

 

Pain can be categorized.  Acute pain typically comes on suddenly and has a limited duration. It’s frequently caused by damage to tissue such as bone, muscle, or organs, and the onset is often accompanied by anxiety or emotional distress.

Chronic pain lasts longer than acute pain and is generally somewhat resistant to medical treatment. It’s usually associated with a long-term illness, such as osteoarthritis. In some cases, such as with fibromyalgia, it’s one of the defining characteristic of the disease. Chronic pain can be the result of damaged tissue, but very often is attributable to nerve damage. See WebMD. A third type of pain is psychogenic, the emotional side of physical pain.

 

The WebMD article classifies pain in a couple other ways: tissue damage or nerve damage; type of tissue or part of the body affected such as back pain or chest pain, muscle or joint pain.

Drug Therapy most often prescribed for acute or chronic pain

Milder forms of pain may be relieved by over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol (acetaminophen) or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen. Both acetaminophen and NSAIDs relieve pain caused by muscle aches and stiffness, and reduce inflammation (swelling and irritation). Topical pain relievers are also available, such as creams, lotions, or sprays that are applied to the skin in order to relieve pain and inflammation from sore muscles and arthritis.

If over-the-counter drugs do not provide relief, your doctor may prescribe stronger medications, such as muscle relaxants, anti-anxiety drugs (such as diazepam), antidepressants (like Cymbalta for musculoskeletal pain), prescription NSAIDs such as Celebrex, or a short course of stronger painkillers (such as codeine, Fentanyl, Percocet, or Vicodin). A limited number of steroid injections at the site of a joint problem can reduce swelling and inflammation.

In April 2005, the FDA asked that Celebrex, an anti-inflammatory drug, carry new warnings about the potential risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as potential stomach ulcer bleeding risks.  At the same time, the FDA asked that over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs — except for aspirin – revise their labels to include information about potential stomach ulcer bleeding risks. [WebMD article on pain management]

A couple hundred milligrams of aspirin, or other NSAIDS, Tylenol or other acetaminophens for a short period of time, say 48 hours, is fairly safe.  However, one of the most well known risks of painkillers is liver damage from acetaminophen. “Although [acetaminophen] has been used for years and overall is extremely safe, liver toxicity can occur with use of more than 4,000 milligrams in a day,” says Dr. Glaser. “This would be eight 500-milligram pills, which is the dosage of extra-strength Tylenol. Liver damage or failure may also occur at lower doses in those who drink alcohol regularly or who have pre-existing liver disease, such as hepatitis C.”

Because acetaminophen is often incorporated into other drugs, you may not be aware of exactly how much you’re taking, which further compounds your risk. “It’s also included in multiple other remedies for colds or sinus symptoms and is commonly paired with other stronger painkillers in medications such as Vicodin and Percocet,” says Glaser. “If an individual is not aware of this fact, he may unintentionally expose himself to amounts of acetaminophen in the danger zone.”

NSAIDs and Ulcers

Taking ibuprofen and naproxen doesn’t pose as great a risk to liver function as acetaminophen. However, some damage to the stomach lining is a possibility, which can lead to blood loss from the irritated area, stomach pains (gastritis), and even ulcers. This is also true of aspirin, which is related to NSAIDs and has many of the same properties. And if you use aspirin along with ibuprofen or naproxen, the risk to your stomach is even greater.

“Any of these pain drugs alone can cause ulcers, and using them together only increases the risk,” says Glaser. “All three of these medications reduce pain through their effects on the prostaglandin pathways.” Unfortunately, those same effects are what lead to an increased risk of gastritis and ulcer formation.

The prostaglandin pathways carry the pain signal to the brain.  What these drugs are doing is interrupting the COX 2 pain pathway.  Unfortunately these drugs also affected the COX 1 pathway, which resulted in stomach bleeding.  Celebrex was the miracle when it came out because it did not cause damage to the stomach.  Unfortunately for patients and for the drug company, Celebrex was implicated in heart attacks. [for further understanding of COX 1 and COX 2, go here.]

NSAIDs and Kidney Function

Though it’s rare, some people could risk kidney problems from using ibuprofen or naproxen. “A less common but severe complication related to these medications is kidney failure, which occurs more commonly in patients who have co-existing risk factors, such as diabetes or high blood pressure,” Glaser says.

Addiction

Some painkillers prescribed by doctors can become addicting, in particular Vicodin and Percocet which contain opiates.  You can explore the internet to discover how high the abuse of these drugs has become, especially among high school students seeking to numb psychological suffering.  If you have unused painkillers in your medicine chest, left over after surgery, get rid of them, especially if there are teenagers in your world.

But I digress, showing my bias against the use of medications. My original blog post tells my anti-drug bias.

There are many other options.  My blog posts are full of them.  I am particularly unwilling to take NSAIDS given the fact that I had Hepatitis C as a young adult, communicated by a dirty needle in the hospital when I was having a D&C after a miscarriage.  In and of themselves, these drugs can be helpful. It is when they are used frequently and without regard for other conditions, such as high blood pressure, stomach issues, high consumption of alcohol.  It can become a stew of interacting foreign substances.

Personally, I have found that the herbal Pain Relieve Complex does a pretty good job of keeping me pain free, along with chiropractic, Feldenkrais, frequent long walks, yoga, massage, Pilates moves and strength building training sessions at the Xgym. My trainers constantly check for good posture and make sure I avoid putting stress on joints that are compromised by osteoarthritis.  Pain Relieve Complex is a COX 2 inhibitor.  The Shaklee scientists found plant compounds that interrupt the pain path without any damage to the stomach or heart.  I plan to keep doing what I am doing until break-through pain or severe numbness stop me in my tracks.  Then I will check in with the sports doc for a new MRI.  I am convinced I am not increasing my risk by waiting.

To understand how Pain Relief Complex works, click here.  To order some from my personal Shaklee web site, click here.

I welcome your comments.  It takes a village.

Be well, Do well and Keep moving,

Betsy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

OTC pain meds

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Gentle Reader,

The aftermath of my bike crash calls into question two of my closely held beliefs:  OTC pain meds are bad for you; keep moving, no matter what.  I was on the dunes path at Long Beach, WA with twelve Finneys of all ages.  Nothing like a little crowd around the beginning of the last section of trail to get a person off kilter and into the sand.  My recovery seemed fine while at the beach because I was icing and taking a lot of Shaklee Pain Relief Complex and doing nothing.  (My granddaughter reminds me that I split some wood with a heavy ax.) The pain worsened, keeping me awake at night.  Coughing hurt unbearably.  I went to my doctor.  Dr. Pepin knows I am not a willing patient.  He is working hard to play the role of a team member in my health care.  He makes a special effort to honor my preference for natural healing practices—acupuncture, massage, individual training and supplements.  He sent me for an x-ray.

When I got home, My Chart contained the message that I had broken the 9th rib on the left side, but only a hairline fracture.  In his notes, he suggested more icing and anti-inflammatories.  I decided to take Aleve.  I took another one 8 hours later.  I took a third 8 hours after that.  I iced off and on for the next 36 hours.  Everything improved.  The depression in the muscles beneath the broken lower back rib normalized.  The muscles on the opposite side calmed down to normal.  I slept soundly, happy that pain did not disturb me.  It seemed like a miracle.

What is so bad about NSAIDS? What do they do?  Why have I resisted taking them so consistently?

It turns out when taken for a brief time (2 – 10 days), anti-inflammatories calm down injured muscles allowing healing to take place.  The danger with these drugs appears when taken habitually over a long period of time to manage chronic pain.  The NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) intercept 2 enzymes called Cox 1 and Cox 2 that are involved with inflammation.  Inhibiting Cox 1 has the side effect of damaging the stomach lining, causing bleeding.  Advil, Motrin and Aleve are the most popular of these non-specific anti-inflammatories and regularly cause damage to the stomach lining when taken over a long period of time.

The risks from taking NSAIDS, besides internal bleeding, are most severe for people who have heart conditions.  People with stomach problems should avoid them.  For healthy people with no blood pressure or other heart issues, taking NSAIDS for a few days to bring down inflammation carries low risk and brings much relief.

I am satisfied that taking NSAIDS for a few days to help the immediate problem is a good thing for my body and does not put me at risk.

Now let me think out loud about my other closely held belief: Keep Moving under any and all circumstances.  This week I have not hiked, gone to yoga practice, worked out with my trainer or done much of anything. I did walk around Green Lake, a 3 miles meander on the flat, and twice I walked to the West Seattle Junction, down and up  a hill, repeated in the opposite direction, about 2 miles total.  Moving, yes; pain free, pretty much.  At least pain free around the injured area.  But after a dozen steps, chronic pain kicked in: hips, knees and lower back.  I found myself questioning the value of moving, especially since moving causes pain.

It turns out that Not moving is lethal.

Bone Loss

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, our bones require applied stress for them to grow. Bone stress sends a signal to the body to build bone density. If you don’t stress your bones by exercising, you can suffer from low bone density, which can turn into a case of osteoporosis. Also, if you never exercise and stretch your joints, your arthritic joints will stiffen over time and their adjoining tissues will weaken, causing more arthritis.

Muscle Loss

Your bones need stress exerted on them to grow, and so do your muscles. A muscle’s fibers need to tear for it to rebuild itself larger and stronger. So as you may already know from experience, if you don’t use your muscles, you “lose” them.

Increased Risk of Disease

Muscle loss caused by inactivity makes your metabolism slow down. Your metabolism is the rate at which your body converts food and drink into usable energy. If you have a slow metabolism, your body ends up storing a lot of the food and drink energy instead of using it to get your body moving. This storage leads to weight gain and puts you at a higher risk for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, depression and anxiety, according to Harvard School of Public Health.

Weaker Immune System

According to MayoClinic.com, without regular aerobic exercise, your immune system weakens. This makes it harder for your body to fight viruses such as the flu and the common cold. So if you never exercise, you’re likely to find yourself getting sick more often.

Keep Moving will remain my closely held belief.  Since the pain I experience when I move is chronic, caused by arthritis, I will continue to use Shaklee’s Pain Relief Complex.  Its herbal formula is a pain path inhibitor (Cox 2 and 5 Lox) but does not interfere with Cox 1.  Therefore there is no risk to the stomach or to the heart.

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving,

I promise I will.  Join me.

Betsy

Comments?  I love to hear them.

Thanks to Lindsay Haskell  of AZ who blogs about health, fitness, culture and fashion.

 

Arthritis, Be Well health tips, Health and Fitness, Keep Moving: Managing Arthritis

The Nutritional Management of Chronic Pain

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Gentle Reader
Are you like me, suffering from chronic pain?  Do you wake up every morning and check to see which joints are hurting?  A friend of mine describes sitting on the edge of the bed wondering if she can actually stand and walk to the bathroom.  I’m better off than that, but the first ½ hour each day is loud, you know the groaning and moaning.  Too bad there’s no one around here but the cats to sympathize.

I when it was announced that Dr. Frank Painter would give a seminar on Chronic Pain management.  This post contains careful notes from that seminar.

Dr. Painter is a major research and practicing chiropractor and maintains the research pages for the Chiro.org online resource for his profession.  It gets thousands of hits a month and is the most go-to site for alternative health care regarding chiropractic treatment.  You can look him up here.

He began with shocking statistics (sometimes I glaze over with too many statistics, but I know professionals quantify results so bear with me.) Chronic pain causes UNBELIEVABLE suffering, disrupts careers and lifestyle, and brings about unimaginable financial drains on our society. It’s now estimated that 24 percent of Americans (or approx. 48 million people) suffer from chronic pain. More than one-third of them regularly take pain medicine to manage their suffering. Those statistics are very frightening.

Pain is caused by tissue injury, surgical procedures, and a variety of illnesses. The common pain we experience from a cut or bruise is very well understood.  It is referred to as acute pain, and is accompanied by the inflammatory response, which involves local swelling, increased temperature, redness, and loss of function.

Damage to cell membranes during an injury releases two substances that initiate the inflammatory response. They are called prostaglandins and bradykinins.  These molecules cause nearby nerve cells to transmit pain information to the brain.  Following the formation of a stable clot, fibroblasts migrate to the site of injury to repair the damaged tissues. That is when acute pain is normally extinguished.  This explains how the acute pain and swelling when I hurt my wrist hiking gradually stopped hurting.  The body rushed repair mechanisms to the place where it was most damaged and in a few hours the acute pain was gone; in a few days all pain was gone.

Chronic pain is different, because chronic pain persists.

Dr. Painter focuses on safe supplementation as an alternative to pain medication.  He also talks about our diet and why chronic pain is so much more common today than in the past.

He reports on a recent study involving hundreds of patients who underwent surgery on their ankle or knee.  The patients who took 1000 mg. of vitamin C for 46 days after their surgery reported 80% reduction in what is called complex regional pain, compared to patients who did not take vitamin C.  If you are planning surgery, especially in a limb (knee or hip replacement for example) begin taking 1000 mg of Sustained Release Vita C before surgery and continue for at least 46 days to prophylactically avoid pain.

Can you believe that more than a 3rd of all people with pain take medication?  When we suffer acute pain from surgery or an injury, the inflammatory response, loss of function, redness and damage to the membrane is alleviated by medication.  And then you stop taking it.  With chronic pain, the wound never heals.  Chronic pain keeps on going.  Any pain that lasts more than 6 months and has no end in sight, like  arthritis, cancer is chronic.

A chiropractor once explained to me that injury sustained in a car wreck creates a pain path in the nervous and muscular system.  The next fender bender is nowhere near as traumatic, but the pain is worse.  This pain path is reactivated, familiar and more challenging to cure.  Believe me, I had a series of car accidents each one less violent than the previous one.  Funny how the pain increased with each one.

How does our diet contribute to chronic pain?

Because of radical changes in the American Diet since the 1950’s, our diet is now pro inflammatory and contributes to both chronic pain and autoimmune system diseases.  I’ll remind you what these changes were:  milling of wheat and other grain to make a ‘whiter’ end product, ie. refining our food; manufacturing foods with high amounts of hydrogenated oils.

Let’s see what’s going on here.  In a plain food diet (no processing), the oils—omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids are in equal balance.  Dr Painter points out that there are 49 known essential nutrients—nutrients our body cannot make but must get from food.  These two oils are among them.  They work in concert in the body regulating thousands of functions through the prostaglandin pathways.  I created a link here in case you, like me, are curious about these babies, prostaglandins, which I’ve been hearing about for all these years of studying nutrition’s effect on our body.  Check it out.  Fascinating.

Omega 3 (we eat salmon and buy fish oil for this one) helps the prostaglandins with inflammation, cardio health, allergies, immune response, mylin sheath protection, hormone modulation, and behavior.  Omega 6, found in borage oil, evening primrose oil, initiates the chemical cascade in the inflammatory response to any injury or infection.

Here’s the problem with this duet.  We used to eat a balance of the omegas 3 and 6, short and longer chain fatty acids:  one to one.  Now, with all these refined foods the balance has changed to twenty to one, omega 6 over omega 3.  Think of the Omega 6 as the gas pedal on your car i.e. body, and omega 3 as the breaks.  Omega 6 turns on the inflammatory response.  Omega 3 (fish) turns it off.

The car is headed for the cliff, folks and the brake pedal is too weak to stop us from hurtling into a world of pain.

We need both Omega 3 and Omega 6.  We need them in the correct ratio.  Omega 6 comes from hydrogenated oils which are found in virtually all processed foods.  Removal of the grain coatings (brown rice, wheat), increased sugar consumption (sugar interferes with synthesis of these fatty acids) and the increase in consumption of deep fried foods and margarine prevent with the healthy marriage of the two fatty acids.  The 1:1 synthesis isn’t happening.

What’s the ratio in your life between corn, sunflower and sesame oils (which appear is most processed foods as hydrogenated oils) and cold water fish, sardines, salmon and anchovies?  Too many Omega 6’s = chronic pain.

Impact of chronic pain

 People hurt too much to get up and go to work.  We lose $3 billion in income each year because of pain. Stuff doesn’t get done because we hurt too much to do it.  $60 billion a year in lost productivity.  Sixty million of us have arthritis, 1 in 3.  Family members living with someone in chronic pain have to deal with the frustration, anxiety and misery of the suffering person.  How disruptive to family life it is to have all this depression and a sense of helplessness caused by pain!

How do we manage this pain?

 Standard medical management:  pain meds, the most popular, aspirin, NSAIDS.  We spend $2.6 billion a year on prescription NSAIDS and another $6 billion on over the counter pain meds.  Most of us are unaware of the lethal side effects of these pain killers. Stanford University reviewed Inflammatory rheumatoid  Arthritis (IRA) drug use in 15,000 patients. Projecting the findings from this well controlled study to the entire US population, they found that 107,000 rheumatoid Arthritis patients were hospitalized for complications from these drugs,  a large number of whom never left the hospital alive.  They bleed out before anyone can help them.  16,500 a year die this way.  That’s only the IRA sufferers.  What about everyone else who takes these meds?

You get no warning signs for the stomach trouble that results from taking these medications.  You just bleed to death.

People with osteoarthritis and IRA are more likely than the regular population to be hospitalized because of GI bleeds.  The risk of Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDS is constant but increases over time with continued use.  The longer you take these drugs, the higher the risk becomes.  Drugs used to coat the stomach do not lower this probability.  The only way to prevent this stomach damage is to stop taking the non steroidal pain medication.  Dying from bleeding to death because of taking too many NSAIDS is the 15th cause of death in America.

By the way, when’s the last time you picked up a bottle of aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen and stopped by to chat with your pharmacist about possible interactions with any other drugs you are taking? No?  You are not alone.  Of all the readers of Consumer Report magazine who answered their survey, only 38% who picked up these drugs when prescribed by their doctor talked to the pharmacist about dangers or interactions.  Only 29% who bought the OTC versions checked with their pharmacist.  We used to be more cautious, before usage became so common.  Eight years ago, Consumer Report did the same survey and over 50% of the people purchasing these medications checked for side effects, dangers and interactions with other medications.  Our pharmacists are trained in drug, supplement and food interactions (not our doctor) and should be used for their expertise.  Avoid risk.

Two neurosurgeons at U of Pittsburg Medical Center decided to explore natural substances to use as a substitute for NSAIDS.  They gave their IRA patients fish oil and after 75 days, 60% of the people had been able to completely discontinue their NSAID usage and were also able to drop off their other pain meds.  88% were extremely satisfied with their pain reduction from taking fish oil.  They would continue to buy fish oil even though it costs more than the medication.

Natural relief

 I am going to shamelessly talk about Shaklee’s pain management products.  Dr. Painter is specific about Shaklee as the manufacturer in his presentation.  This company’s large staff of medical scientists studied the problem of prostaglandins and pain, created biochemical models and searched until they found herbs and safe substances that would interrupt the pain path.  I was blown away by the slide presentation Dr. Les Wong made at the annual conference the year Pain Relief Complex was introduced.

Pain Relief Complex.  A compliment of medicinal herbs designed to treat pain. The primary ingredient Boswellia extract has been used in India for a long time for joint and arthritic pain as it contains very powerful analgesic properties.  In a study people with severe osteoarthritis knee pain where able to get more flexibility and much less pain with Boswellia extract, and thereby increase their walking distance dramatically.  The frequency of swelling in the knee joint decreased.  Boswellia has also been used to heal the stomach from ulcerative colitis.  In other words, it helps heal a stomach damaged by Celebrex or other NSAIDS.

Jt. Health Complex.  When in pain we develop pain avoidance behaviors like limping.  Other daily activities are avoided because you know its going to hurt too much to do it.  I know I leave stuff lying on the floor and put off raking leaves because I know I’m going to hurt when I bend over too often.

When we stop moving to avoid pain, we actually increase the likelihood of increased pain.  Why is that? Joint tissue—ligaments, bone, have no blood supply of their own.  They eliminate their waste products through a pumping motion when the joint moves.  Nutrition to the joint also depends on pumping, or moving.  Waste products out, nutrition in, through motion.  Without motion, waste products build up around the joint which inhibits the nutrition from being absorbed.  Nutrients move from the high concentration in the blood to diffuse themselves into the joint. This process requires movement.  If your joint is smothered in waste products, the nutrients don’t go there—too crowded—and the cells start to die because there are no nutrients to feed them.  The cartilage begins to degrade and then the bones start to get closer and closer together.  The body tries to stabilize that joint by importing minerals like calcium and magnesium to build extra protection around that joint.  If you took an x-ray of the joint, you’d see little growths where they should not be.  The objective is to reduce the pain so you get more motion in the joint and clear the waste and allow nutrients to enter.  Joint Health Complex provides dramatic and speedy pain relief to get you moving again.

NSAIDS actually accelerate the deterioration of cartilage.  36% of liver failure is being cause by acetaminophen (Tylenol) toxicity.  One out of three liver transplants is because of the use of acetaminophen.  This research and the death of children from Tylenol drove the search for anti-inflammatories with no side effects.

 Jt Health Complex leads the way.  Boswellia seratta has a long use as an herbal anti-inflammatory.  It works.  It can be used to treat osteoarthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, RA and asthma.  Boswellia was first introduced in Shaklee Pain Relief complex in 2003.  It is so powerful they decided to add it to the Jt. Health Complex.  Joint Health Complex includes as a major ingredient glucosamine.  It has been shown in clinic studies that combining chondroitin with glucosamine reduced the body’s ability to absorb the glucosamine.  In redesigning the Jt. Health Complex, Shaklee scientists made sure there was no chondroitin mixed in with it.

 

Testing

Once they had the new formulation completed, they tested it head to head with the leading pharmacist recommended product, Walgreen’s Osteobyflex.  In a clinical trial they found that Jt. Health Complex was 28% faster acting than byflex for providing pain relief.  If you were beginning for the first time to take the product, it took only 5 days to get relief with Jt. Health Complex as opposed to 7 days with Osteobyflex.  With the addition of boswellia,  Jt. Health complex gave 45% better pain relief than the Walgreen product.  Shaklee found a vegetarian source for glucosamine.  Most glucosamine on the market is sourced from shell-fish.  They also made use of a carrier molecule that does not have salt (some products on the market are as much as 30% salt!) which, if you had high blood pressure could be bad—1 third of a tablespoon of salt? I don’t think so. Jt. Health Complex uses hydrochloric acid instead of sulfate to deliver glucosamine.  It also contains zinc, manganese, copper and Vita C to nourish the developing cartilage.  Glucosamine has been researched extensively since 1970’s and has been found to be at least as effective in relieving pain and NSAIDs without any dangerous side effects.  In one study it was shown that there was an actual increase in the cartilage with glucosamine.

 

Joint and muscle pain cream.  Helps with pain from over use during exercise.  Active ingredient is menthol. Shaklee improved on the healing characteristics by improving on the delivery of the menthol with a liposome delivery system.  This liposome delivery provides prolonged release and deeper penetration.  If you’ve used Flexall 454, Icy Hot and JointFlex, your may get temporary distraction from pain, but you are probably throwing your money away.  Topical local anesthetics, topical capsaicin are basically aspirin in creamy form and could affect your stomach the way taking aspirin does.

 

I strongly recommend this trio of pain relief products for chronic pain.  I use them to great advantage.  Dr. Painter provides the scientific back drop to prove the effect is no placebo.

 

If you suffer from chronic pain that does not seem to associated with a joint, Omega guard is the #1 nutrient solution.  Shaklee’s OmegaGuard, DHA, EPA and 5 other naturally found omega 3 fatty acids provides the missing link for halting diet induced inflammation.  Get the balance back between omega 6 and omega 3, supplement with Omerga 3 so the ratio is 1:1 and you will have less pain.  OmegaGuard naturally balances the prostyglandins that prolong the inflammatory response to pain stimulus.  Rather than using drugs to suppress the inflammation, re-balance the body’s own ability to handle pain by changing your diet to eliminate hydrogenated fats and excess sugars plus taking enough OmegaGuard to change the Omega3:Omega6 dance back to 1:1.

That’s it.  Thanks for reading all the way to the end.  May you be well, pain free and able to keep moving.

What’s next?

Tell us

Do you check your meds and OTC drugs with the pharmacist?

What pain relief rubs have your tried?  Results?

Have you given up hope or are you willing to try another way to get relief?

 

If you decide you want to try these products, go to my blog page, http://www.grandmabetsybell.com/shop-shaklee-products/ and browse the product guide.

Get in touch via the comment section.

If you have found value here, feel free to share on your FB page or with your friends and colleagues suffering from chronic pain.

Fondly, Betsy

Be Well, Do Well and Keep Moving

BetsyBell’s Health4u

www.GrandmaBetsyBell.com

206 933 1889  1 888 283 2077

betsy@hihohealth.com