Pain relief, the doshas & lymph

It's a long story, but the short version is that I temporarily lost my writing space at the kitchen table. That's been resolved (inshallah) so let's get back on track, shall we? I missed you, did you miss me? When I don't write here, the emails dry up. I gets lonesome! 

lol.

This is a post I found half written in draft and finished today .. 

Here's another example of how different the treatment of pain from the herbalists' perspective is from what we're used to; there isn't really such a thing as an everyday, overall pain reliever - that I know of - in herbal medicine. It seems there's no equivalent to popping a Tylenol.



What we do have in the herbal repertoire is a variety of darn useful remedies for specific sorts of pain - meaning they get to the root of the issue. That means that, once again, the choice to use herbs rather than drugs actually gives us an opportunity (or forces us, depending on your point of view) to look inward and ask ourselves "what kind of pain is this"? Where is it coming from? What does it feel like? Is it acute or chronic or alternating between the two? Is it muscular, joint or nerve, or maybe a combination? It's only by being able to identify the source that we can find the specific remedy.

Having a good relationship with a physiotherapist or similar practitioner comes in handy here. I've learnt volumes from my physio gal, bless her heart, about how pain "refers", ie it isn't always coming from the place that we're feeling it, like when my rib pain was coming from an ever-so-slightly shifted disc in my spine, then radiating through the nerves along my ribcage. (Mullein helped get the disc settled down, St John'swort helped calm the nerves.)

You also have to ask yourself if the pain might be a case of compensation; one area of the body is weak, and other areas are getting worn out trying to pick up the slack. An aching lower back is often due to weak abdominal muscles, for example. Headaches can come from tense musculature in the neck which comes from poor posture which comes from, again, weak muscles in the core. Knee pain can come from the hips or the feet (bad shoes, maybe?).

Yes, pain is a rabbit hole.

But I speak here from experience - we must understand the messages coming from the body if we want to relieve pain.

"Inflammation" - now there's a well worn catch-all word! There are different kinds of inflammation - there's the hot, dry kind that calls for lubrication. There's the hot, damp kind that's coming from lack of drainage somewhere in the system. There's an inflammatory state that's "cold" in nature as well; this is less about temperature (although it can produce chills) and more about lack of circulation. It can get really complicated, with hot pain in the joints and cold & damp in the stomach. I mean what the hell is going on there??

Speaking of rabbit holes, if you're serious about learning how to use herbal medicine in the most effective way - ie curing ailments, not just palliating symptoms - by understanding "tissue states", I can recommend the book I'm reading right now, Matthew Wood's Earthwise Herbal Repertory Honestly, it's making my head swim a bit .. tongue and pulse diagnoses, anyone? Oh my. Yes, this is some serious reading, and I admit to skimming large swaths of it to come back to later. I'm only on the first run-through, this book will be at my side for a long time to come.

On the one hand, reading this kind of advanced material brings home just how right I was to decide not to go into clinical practice; I just don't have the capacity required to devote myself to that kind of thinking on a daily basis. On the other hand, I am responsible for my own health - having this sort of reference material at my fingertips will probably prove to be invaluable as I work toward being a hale and hearty little old lady. I'm starting to think I'd like to see 90.

Pain and illness can provide clues to our individual constitutions. The Ayuvedic doshas are a nice classification system of the 3 basic types of human beings that can help us there; once we identify which dosha/constitutional type is most dominant in us, we can then pinpoint where imbalances might lie and how to correct them. The really nice thing about the doshas is that they can be so easily supported with food; I like that. And knowing, for example, that hot, dry pain indicates the body needs some lubrication is pretty helpful. But knowing how to discern whether it needs lubrication in the form of water or oil makes all the difference. The doshas can tell us that.

And as much as I love and appreciate herbal medicine, it's best suited to being used with a very light touch; to support, or perhaps nudge, but only rarely as a weapon. Using herbs in that way dovetails nicely with working with the constitution, or dosha. When we use those herbs that are as safe as foods - dandelion, burdock, calendula, cleavers .. there are many of them - having to "do battle" to keep ourselves well becomes a rare event. 

Recently I've been learning just how important the movement of lymph (or the lack thereof) is to, well, everything. We normally only think of lymph glands when they swell up, indicating infection, but the lymph system is essential to more than just dealing with bacterial invaders. It's so quiet as it goes about its business that it's rarely noticeable when that system isn't functioning optimally, yet the health of all our organs, our nerves and even our joints depends on the health of our lymphatic system. You'd think it would get more press! Supporting the movement of lymph seems to affect everything from sinuses to kneecaps; from immunity to how well our senses work. Just for fun I did a little do-it-yerself lymph massage on my face the other night and the next day my senses of smell and taste were way more acute. That was interesting. (I looked a whole lot better, too!)

Here's the video I learned the face lymph massage from, if you have a few minutes you should try it. Paul tried it and his sinuses cleared out and actually stayed clear for a change. It kinda blew him away.

Okay, that's it for now -