Natural Pain Relief Options

In my house, we don't use over-the-counter pain medications. The side effects just aren't worth it, but there are times when we need pain control. My son will be having some dental work done, so I did more research on natural pain management, and I wanted to share that with you!

Listen in while I share what I've learned about how to use herbs like cloves, thyme, turmeric, garlic, wild lettuce, and more for mouth pain and pain all over the body. I hope you gain some useful information for planning your medicine garden.

Transcript

Speaker 3: 0:42

Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, magic Barclay, and today I wanna talk about natural pain relief options. Now, one of my sons has just started two years worth of dental work. He's getting some surgeries done and lots of time in braces. He's already had an expander put in his mouth for all the parents out there going through this around the world. My gosh, my heart goes out to you because it's an ordeal. Anyway, he has a surgery coming up just before the end of the year, and he needs to have pain relief. Now my family don't take over the counter pain relief, so I've delved into. All sorts of options for him, and I wanted to share those with you because when we take over the counter medications, obviously there are a lot of side effects. They're even listed on the packaging. The pharmacist will even tell you about them because they're supposed to. And so what are some ways around pain, different types of pain where we can manage it in a natural way that has more benefits? Other than just pain relief and a lot less side effects. So let's get into it. Let's start with dental pain. Now, dental or oral pain can be very, very different to any other pain, so there's a lot of options here. Of course. With most pain, cold, compress, and then heat, and then cold. And then heat will always work with dental. Definitely a cold compress. A cold wash cloth for about 20 minutes will certainly help. Minor pain subside, but what if it's a little bit more intense? Well, clove oil is amazing for dental pain, and so it's actually. Got eugenol in it, which is a natural pain reliever. And clove oil can be applied, uh, as cloves. You can chew on cloves or as a therapeutic grade clove oil. Now it is a burning hot oil, so putting it directly a hundred percent pure into your mouth will bring tears to your eyes. And so what I suggest is that use a carrier oil, like MCT oil to put it straight onto the gums, can be, swished in a mouthwash. So you can crush clove or put clove oil in some sesame oil, and you can use that and swish it around your mouth and it will pretty much work instantly. Now, garlic is another one. Chewing on garlic or if you can find a garlic mouthwash or something like that, it actually helps imp periodontal treatment and you know, things like garlic and ginger. And turmeric, which we'll talk about more, but let's focus on garlic now are actually all rounders. They can do so many things for our body, and garlic has a compound in it called Allison. Allison is a. It's found in garlic. It's found in onions, and it is a great antibacterial anti-inflammatory. So you can even crush garlic and make it into a paste and put that on your teeth and on your gums to relieve pain. Another one here is peppermint. You can use it as leaves. Just chew it up. Use it as a poltis. You can, uh, use it as an oil. And you know, peppermint lozenges as well. Now this will help throat pain, it will help tooth pain, it will help that kind of pain that goes right up into your head when you've got aching gums, periodontal pain. So peppermint is cooling like clove is. Heating, peppermint is cooling. So just be mindful when you've chewed on some peppermint or used peppermint oil that if you're going to have a drink of water straight after, it's going to feel freezing cold. Okay? Another one is time. Time is great for all sorts of. Oral fungus, it's actually an antifungal. It helps put staph back into, into dormancy and it can be used. Directly from the leaf. Again, chewing it up, using it as a poltus, or you can dilute the oil in a carrier oil such as MCT or coconut. And so this will really help. Now, time also helps our respiratory system, so. If you feel like, you know, you're getting full up with a head cold or a bit stuffy, you can make time tea. Uh, we make it for our chickens as well, so we make time, tea and put it into their water. It certainly helps them, uh, but I'm gonna be using it for my son for his oral pain. Another one is apple cider vinegar. Now this helps reduce gingivitis or gum disease and can help with the pain associated with that. it is also used in tooth whitening. It's an antiseptic and anti-inflammatory, but, but big. But if you have an immune type that is a broken barrier system type. You shouldn't be using apple cider vinegar because it can actually promote some of the bacteria to change the flora. It isn't antibacterial. But if you have one type of bacteria that is outta control as opposed to another, say if you've got LPS, then maybe a CV is not the best thing for you. Okay. Turmeric, we talked about it just before and. All rounder. It can be used as a paste. You can make it into, add it to a T. Um, you can use turmeric oil. You can apply that. Just make sure that once the paint is gone, you give your teeth a good old brush because turmeric will. Turn your mouth yellow, but it is fantastic. Turmeric also can be used in golden milk. If you have a head cold, it can put that to rest. It's one of those all rounders with garlic and ginger. Okay. There's actually a plant also, which is grown in the tropics and it's called the toothache plant. Now this one has a compound in it, which has anti-inflammatory properties. Toothache plant, you just chew on it. Uh, it will actually make your whole mouth feel numb. So that's something to look into. White willow bark. Now white willow bark contains sison, which is. It's very similar to aspirin. In fact, aspirin was based on white willow bark back in the day. So it does come with some of the cautions that aspirin also comes with. It shouldn't be used in children. It is a blood thinner. So if you are using blood thinning medications, give white willow bark a bit of a wide berth. Now, guava leaves if you can get them. Guava leaves are great. They actually put strep back into its place. They can be. Used to help fill small holes in teeth, guava leaves, actually when they meet your saliva, have really great antibacterial properties and guava leaves can also be used. If you have a staph infection in your eye, known as a ty, you can put a guava leaf over your eye and put a cold compress over the top and that will help as well. Now there's a herb called Fever Few. It's also known as Bachelor's buttons flour, and it's actually an antiseptic when used as a T it can be used for toothaches. Uh, it, there's not a lot of studies. Out there with that one, but it really shouldn't be used if you are pregnant. So that's Fever few. Fever Few is also great as a companion plant, by the way, in your veggie garden. Um, just have a bit of a smell to it, so I'd plant it kind of on the corners. Uh, but it is great at keeping pests away. Okay. Bicarb of soda, anti-inflammatory, relieves pain, relieves swelling, antibacterial, so you can mix at. Two teaspoons of that one in lukewarm water. Swish it around for about 30 seconds and spit it out. It is very alkaline and can cause some chemical irritation. So start off really slowly with that one. In fact, I would just swish it around for maybe five, 10 seconds and then spit it out. Uh, if you have not done it before. Cinnamon is another one. Now, cinnamon's a great all rounder. It's great for lowering blood sugars. It is an antibacterial, an anti-inflammatory, and can prevent cavities. There's a lot of studies out there with that one, so it reduces the risk of fungal infection in the mouth. Now you can suck on a cinnamon stick or you can make a paste out of it and. Add that to honey and apply it to the aching area. Coconut oil is another great one. Coconut oil. When used in oil pulling, can draw bacteria out of the mouth. Do not spit it down the sink, whatever you do, and do not spit it into your garden. It will actually kill off any plants that you spit it on. So it's best to spit it into a jar and then, or a bag and pop that into the bin. Or you can actually put it in your compost. Um, if you don't wanna throw it away, but not directly onto your plants now. Kay and Pepper. Ca and Pepper has capsaicin in it, which actually blocks the sensation of pain traveling from your brain and your nerves. Now it can be used in tooth pain. You just mix it with some coconut oil, swish it around your mouth, and then spit it into the compost or into a bag. Ca and Pepper is also great to stop any bleeding, so. If you have bleeding gums or bleeding anywhere in your body, it's actually used in herbal emergency treatment and it will stop bleeding. So, and shock. So that's a great one. Uh, vanilla extract. If you are making it yourself, not store, store-bought vanilla extract, but it is an anti-inflammatory. It can ease toothache. It's antimicrobial. Dab some on a cotton wool bowl and apply it to the area of pain. Honey, raw honey, not manufactured honey, can actually relieve tooth pain. You can, um, reduce swelling with it, just dab it onto the aching area as needed. Oregano and tea tree oils going to lump these in together because they're both natural anti-inflammatories, antimicrobials, antiseptics, and they are both hot heating warming oils, just like clove oil is. So you're going to want to be very careful with those salt water using, not iodized white table salt, but real salt. Salt water, swishing it around the mouth can relieve. Pain, instantly. It can also help reset the flora in your mouth. So they're just some of the oral painkillers. Now some of these can be used right through the body, and so the big ones here are white willow bark, turmeric, garlic. We have ginger, we have chili or ca and pepper. Anything with that capsaicin, you can use heli crim oil. Now, heli crim oil is great at relieving blood clots. There's a lot of studies out there with that. So heli crim is a healing pain relieving oil. You can. Use lots of these oils, lots of these plants you can use. Holy basil, also known as tulsi. There's boswellia, also known as frankincense. And so some of these are absolutely fantastic for pain relief. But let's have a look at what might be actually growing in the garden for pain relief. So if we look at the first one. Boswellia Frankincense, quite easy to grow. We are using the SAP from this one. And so it is anti-inflammatory. It helps with osteoarthritis. It reduces inflammation. It can be absolutely fantastic, can be used. You can use the resin to it as a gum. Um. It's really an all rounder, frankincense, ginger, we spoke about it just earlier. You can chew on some ginger. You can grate the ginger. You can make a tea out of the ginger. You can use a ginger oil. Any ginger will help. I. We have California Poppy, a beautiful yellow broad flower, very easy to grow. The alkaloids in California, poppy can actually relieve chronic pain and pain related insomnia. So this is one that we certainly need to be growing in the garden. It brings the pollinators in. It looks beautiful. But it has medicinal uses. Lavender, very effective as an analgesic. It's beautiful in the garden. It's very easy to use. We know it helps with sleep and relaxation. You can make a tea out of it. You can grind it into a paste. You can use it as an oil. You can even add it to your cooking. So there's one there, ashwagandha. Now ashwagandha is great as a cortisol lower, so it relieves stress in, in other words, there's a lot of studies out there to say it can help with stiffness, with knee swelling, with arthritis symptoms. There is more ongoing about this one. It's also known as withania. That's its, uh, scientific name. Ashwagandha is best to be used in the mornings, uh, not first thing in the morning, probably mid-morning when you want your cortisol to start coming down. I mentioned California poppy and lavender. Beautiful in the garden. Okay, here's one that you probably think is a weed and it's probably growing in your garden everywhere in the world right now, and it kind of looks like a dandelion. It's actually wild lettuce. And wild lettuce has those kind of jagged edges, like a dandelion plant does, but it actually has little prickles on the bottom of the leaves, so the underside of the leaves. Now, if you break the wild lettuce and the sap starts coming out, it comes out white. It looks like. Latex, like liquid latex, or it looks like a really thick, creamy milk. and this is what the pain relief comes from now, while lettuce is also known as opium lettuce. So it shows you how strong it can be And in studies that were conducted, they found that pain was relieved by 103% using wild lettuce. Now its active constituents. Um. There's a couple of them. They have actually been, uh, found to have these phytochemicals that relieve pain similar to ibuprofen. So wild lettuce can be found anywhere in your garden. Many of the plant apps will be able to identify it for you. There's just a few of. The natural things that we can do and we can grow in our garden. Now, of course, when we have pain, heat, and cold, I mentioned it earlier, great way to help reduce the pain, reduce the swelling, you know, applying. An ice pack and then a heat pack, and then an ice pack, and repeating that a few times, 10 minutes at a time will certainly help you without any side effects. When we're looking at hydration, making sure that we have a little bit of salt in the water so that we can actually absorb it. We don't really absorb plain water too well, and certainly when we're in pain, our body is in defense mode. The pain is a symptom to whatever else is going on, and so we need to make things easier on the body. So having a little bit of salt in your water when you have pain will certainly help you relieving your stress. If you are in pain, the last thing you need to do is to be around people or doing things that are going to make things worse. Do not push yourself. In other words, if you feel like you're in pain and you're supposed to be going somewhere. Looking after your body is a bit more important than the place that you're supposed to be, the people that you're supposed to see. You need to put yourself first in this situation and identifying what is the pain coming from? Where is it? Is it nerve pain? Like in oral surgery, it's going to be. Localized pain and it's going to be nerve pain. So identifying where is it coming from, what can you do to relieve this or rectify the situation so that it's not as damaging. There's a lot of things that you can do for pain, making sure that you're sleeping well, making sure that you are eating well, staying away from processed foods, because guess what? Nothing in a food from a packet is going to help you when you are in pain. So making sure that you are eating the rainbow. Right. So eating different colored fruits and vegetables, making sure you've got good quality meat that hopefully you know where it's coming from. If you can buy straight from the farmer, that's great'cause there's not gonna be anything hopefully added into that meat that will help increase your pain. So we really need to look at different ways of managing it. And of course, self-talk comes in here as well. And you've heard me talk. on this podcast and on other podcasts all about this one. And that is, if you're in pain, do not tell yourself you're in pain. Okay? So you know, you might hurt your back and you might think to yourself or say to yourself, oh, my back hurts so bad. Guess what? That's not helping. Because your body is going to go, oh, okay, that's what's supposed to be happening. I'll match you, and that can actually continue your pain. So we need to make sure that our self-talk is healthy as well. You can still acknowledge the pain, but add in, but I'm feeling much better. I'm going to feel much better soon, something like that, so that your body doesn't feel like that's the state you have to stay in. Now. There's a lot of options there for pain. As I said, there's a few go-tos that I grow in my garden, California, poppy, lavender, garlic, ginger, wild lettuce. They're always in my garden. And they're very easy to use with. No chemical side effects. So, you know, always look at what you can do. If you only have a balcony garden or if wherever you are listening to this, it's the dead of winter at the moment. Then when it's spring and summer, you wanna be cultivating these things in a way that you can preserve them. So, you know, garlic and ginger, you can make tinctures out of them. You can make a paste out of them. You can freeze blocks of that paste and then use it as you need it over winter. Things like California poppy and wild lettuce won't grow in winter, and it's hard to cultivate the wild lettuce in particular. You need that one fresh. But things like lavender, you can grow and you can make a tea out of it. Dry things out. California poppy, you can make a tea out of it. Dry things out, things like thyme. You can also do that. Uh, peppermint. You can also do that. So really prepare yourself all year round. Look at what you can grow. First of all, things like the herbs, oregano, thyme, very easy to grow in spring and summer. Very easy to dry and make a tea out of. And really look at preparing your home medicine cabinet. Now, these are just a few things that you can do for pain. And my boy, when he has his surgery shortly, he will be using some of these for pain. He will not be using Ibuprofen or Aspirin or Neurophin or Panadine or Oxy or any of those. He just won't. Not because I tell him not to, but'cause he's made that personal choice to not put things like that into his body. But he will be sending me and his brother out to harvest some wild lettuce for him as he needs it. He. He will be using things like raw honey. You know, he will be taking care of his body in a way that doesn't lead to more side effects and further issues down the track. And for anyone going through any oral surgery, this is a personal choice you need to make. I'm not saying do not use. Over the counters, but just be aware that there are other options out there that don't have side effects, and there are other options out there that year round you can use and can benefit your garden. Can benefit. Your food can benefit your life, because guess what? When you are growing something and using it, it feels fantastic. So this can help you with how you feel about yourself, being able to grow a plant, being able to use the plant, and being able to avoid any of the nasties that you maybe would've used as your go-to. I hope this episode's been of help. Please do like. Subscribe, review and of course share. We will be doing more of these episodes as we come, but for now I hope you enjoyed some of our natural pain relief options. We look forward to speaking to you in the next episode.