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Herbs and Backs
Herbal medicines can be incredibly good for back pain, I have described three treatments below in practical detail that anyone can do and that I know can work very well in the short term but I would urge you to find a good herbalist if you have any kind of serious or chronic health problems, including a bad back. Celery seed is the best medicine at flushing out acidic wastes and residues from the body. This treatment is for the many people who get back pain as a direct result of doing too much (e.g. gardening, lifting etc.). The muscles of their backs fill with lactic acids and waste products and become stiff and sore for much longer than they should. Using large amounts of celery seed over a short time frame will move those waste products out of the tissues into the blood stream until they are eliminated out of the body via the kidneys therefore it is vital that you drink a lot of water while you are doing the Celery treatment, e.g. at least 2 litres over the day! ~ Recipe 30 grams, or one ounce of Celery seed (preferably from a herbalist or herb store where you can get high-grade organic celery seed, do not use Celery seed that has been sprayed with chemicals) Place the seeds in a saucepan with approximately 3 cups or about 700mls of water. Briefly bring the Celery seeds to the boil for about a minute then take off the heat, cover the saucepan and allow the mixture to cool for at least half an hour. Strain off the tea and what you now have is the entire dose for the day. Do not drink it in one go but rather take it in two or three divided doses throughout the day. In other words, you should have one or more cups of the Celery seed decoction, two to three times daily. If you have a short-term back or aching muscle problem then you may only need to do one day's worth of treatment because it does often work very quickly. However if you have a longer term problem you may need to repeat the treatment for a further two days (i.e. three treatments in total) at which point you should take a break for 4 days before repeating the treatment so long as a) it helped the first time and b) it is still needed.
Another treatment that can be very effective for back pain is a super-strong Chamomile tea and compress. This is particularly good where there is a deep pain in the back that won't shift even after taking pain killers. This is usually from chronic inflammation and Chamomile, if used correctly, is excellent at resolving this. Firstly make an exceptionally strong chamomile infusion by taking a small handful of Chamomile flowers (about 6-8 tsps) placing them in a jar with a sealable lid, pouring over boiling water (about 2 large cups is ideal) sealing the jar and and then covering it with a towel. Leave the tea until it has completely cooled down then strain it through a seive or some muslin cloth and it is ready to use. Ideally you should, over the course of at least a few hours, take small sips of one cupful or about half of this infusion because it will convey potent anti-inflammatory benefits throughout your entire body. Drinking a cupful of Chamomile infusion when it is made this strong is not for the faint-hearted, it will be extremely bitter, but you should not underestimate just how powerful Chamomile can be when it is taken at this strength. This treatment has worked for my own patients for whom powerful pain killing drugs have been ineffective. Take the liquid that you are not going to drink and use it to make a compress for the area of your back that is in pain. To prepare the compress simply soak a flannel or some other kind of cloth in the Chamomile infusion then lightly squeeze the cloth until it is what is called ‘wringing wet’ (which means that if you twisted it you would easily get a lot more liquid out but it will only slowly drip if you just hold it up). You then apply this soaked cloth to your back as either a cold compress or as a hot compress as you prefer. ~ Cold compresses. Place the cup of strong Chamomile tea in the refrigerator and make the compress as described above when the liquid is nice and cold. You may just have to try this and see if it works better for you but generally this is what you do for an especially ‘hot’ painful condition that you want to rapidly alleviate. The cool cloth is placed over the affected areas until the body heat brings the compress back to normal temperature, in the process much heat and inflammation is drawn out. ~ Hot compresses Use the strong chamomile tea at room temperature, i.e. do not reheat it. Make the compress as described and once the room temperature cloth is over the part of your back that needs it you then place on top something to 'heat' the compress. This could be a heated wheat or rice bag, a hot water bottle or any other item that will sustain a persistent heat for at least 10 minutes. If you need to put extra towels under or over the heating substance for your comfort or to help retain the heat then that is fine. This kind of hot compress is often most effective for deep and chronic pain, for example for conditions such as sciatica or arthritis. It can be profoundly helpful but will probably need to be repeated each day for a few days to see a really lasting improvement.
The third treatment that I have found to help people with back pain is taking Turmeric and Ginger powder internally. This is particularly helpful when the back pain is part of a wider picture of systemic inflammation. Perhaps the person has many other areas of pain in other joints and muscles as well as their back. These two herbs are very safe to take in high doses but I would not recommend this treatment for someone with a sensitive stomach. You will be able to purchase medicinally potent Turmeric and Ginger powder anywhere in the world where people cook and eat with spices. You may well have both of them in your kitchen right now! ~ The Dose Dosage is everything in herbal medicine; in the case of these two herbs, to be confident that they will be likely to help, you need a high dose. For an average sized person with significant back pain I would recommend
The best and simplest way to take these herbs is to mix them into a slurry with enough water to dilute them and then just drink them down as quickly as you can. If you can manage all this in one go then that's ok, but if you have to divide it up into smaller amounts over the day then only mix the powders into water when you are ready to drink them. As I said, this treatment is not for the faint-hearted, but if it is obviously working well within 48 hours (two treatments over two days) then you can be confident it is going to work and that persisting with the treatment for a maximum of a week before taking a break for at least 3 or 4 days will help you with some deep healing in the parts of your body that need it.
Fact 1: Not moving and just resting a bad back makes it worse in the long run Those are facts; if you have had a bad back for a while you will have probably proved both of them to be true to yourself, maybe on more than one occasion... So, you definitely have to move, but how much? The way to stop yourself doing harm when you exercise is to keep your attention focused within. Your body will tell you in ample time if you are doing something that will bring you to harm. Following a rigid exercise program seems to lead to a lot of people ending up injuring themselves further. It is how many people seem to get bad backs in the first place. Walking, on the other hand, always seems great for bad backs...
Most people with bad backs take drugs, at least at some point in the process. Yes they have side-effects and yes people get hooked on them but I think the biggest danger happens when the drugs actually work! This always seems to cause people to get worse in the long run. When you can’t feel how your back is aching you are highly likely to keep doing whatever it was that made it bad in the first place. In the long run, the drug approach does not end well, ever.
Thinking of the spine as a vibrant, alive, electrical cord; like an antenna from your brain, helps you to approach it with the care and reverence it deserves. In a very real sense our brains are not just limited to our heads. The central nervous system, of which the brain is at the top, stretches throughout the whole spine and from there sends and receives messages throughout the whole body. (Plants, on the other hand, have their brains buried under the ground, in their roots, and their generative organs, their flowers, at the top, so who's upside down, us or them?) This antenna is able to both receive and transmit impulses. We get information in through the obvious channels of our senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell) but we also receive a lot more input from just being in our environment in ways that we cannot so easily identify, the 'sixth sense' if you like. All of this flows in reverse as well. When we think, or feel, anything, there is a physical, chemical and electrical reaction that occurs in our brain and our spinal cord. You cannot so much as have a thought without there being a change in your physical being at the same time. It is no wonder that there are so many stresses and strains that come to take up residence in the spine. Everything you ever feel, inwardly or outwardly, goes through it. Inevitably, there will eventually be an accumulation, a blockage, eventually there may be some pain. Many gifted doctors and therapists have, for a long time, realised and worked with the fact that you can help all kinds of problems by clearing the blocked messages that are created by tension in the spine. |
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