Most of my subscribers are Baby Boomers (1945 – 1964). Then there are the millennials, so-called. Younger than that are the X-generation (1965 – 1980); I think there is even a Y-generation (1981 – 1996) and Z (1997 – 2012), according to USA Today.¹
We are now the D-generation! (degeneration, get it!)
It’s true, we are getting steadily older and (some of us) a bit crumblier, as the years go by. It varies: we have good folks dancing in their 90s and some in their 50s who can barely walk.
Whatever… the indignities of age are stalking us and we need to keep them at bay.
One of the most evident symptoms of age is the question of pain and mobility, by which I mean arthritis. That too is variable; we have centenarians who walk tall and display little stiffness; while some unlucky individuals stoop and shuffle from 60 onwards. You can almost hear them creaking as they move about!
Of course musculoskeletal issues can strike at any age. Arthritis can strike children, where it is obviously not aging at work. The one thing I want you to grasp is that, for the majority of us, NOTHING is inevitable. Mother Nature heals, as you’ll often hear me say. It’s just that the process gets more difficult as the years advance. And, let’s face it, we never quite get back to how it was when we were younger!
Arthritis is a typical feature of aging. Idiot doctors put it down to wear and tear. But that’s nonsense, as the busy, active and flexible nonagenarians and centenarians prove. I’m not saying the pain and stiffness don’t exist. It does if you have a touch of arthritis. I’m just saying the explanation doesn’t hold water.
Listen, in all my years there have been many patients who had joint damage VISIBLE ON X-RAY and yet who recovered and got rid of the pain and limitation. In fact I used to use my old Wonder Question: DO YOU EVER HAVE PAIN-FREE DAYS?
If the person can answer YES (and many do) then there is nothing permanently wrong. What’s more, you can begin to doubt that bony changes on an x-ray are actually causing the pain! Otherwise why would the pain have an on-off pattern?
So What Is Pain and Stiffness, Really?
Inflammation! Every youngster starting out a med school learns the signs of inflammation: pain, swelling, redness and heat (which we learn in glorious Latin: dolor, tumor, rubor and calor). There’s another element thrown in as an after-thought: loss of function (functio laesa). An inflamed joint won’t work as well as it should.
The corollary is that, if you can quench the inflammation, the pain, redness, swelling etc. goes away! And we know a lot more about calming inflammation these days than we did when I was at med school. Then there was aspirin and acetominophen (tylenol, paracetomol). If it was really severe, then corticosteroids may be brought into action.
Now we have a wealth of herbals, for example, many of which have good science and sometimes these more traditional remedies out-perform regulated medical drugs. They are certainly a lot safer too.
Take curcumin. You’ll have heard of its formidable anti-inflammatory powers. It’s not that well absorbed but heck: it’s cheap and plentiful!
Boswellia (frankincense) is another one with solid science. I’d always take these in preference to NSAIDs.
But there’s also ashwaganda, astragalus, cat’s claw (Uncaria tomentosa), licorice root, Fenugreek, Aloe vera and, one of my absolute favorites, Calendula. The latter I often administer as a homeopathic treatment. Homeopathic Calendula cream is WONDERFUL for burns (including sunburn)!
If you suffer with pain and haven’t explored all these possibilities yet, I urge you to experiment with them. You don’t need a doctor’s script!
Garcinia kola. This is yet another herb that has scientific backing. A 2008 study compared its use to Naproxen (Advil, a NSAID), Celebrex (a COX-2 inhibitor) and placebo. It was just as good but without any side effects. Whereas NSAIDs are plagued with gastrointestinal bleeding and an increased risk of serious cardiovascular thrombotic events, including myocardial infarction and stroke, which can be fatal.²
From https://urubeed.com/bitter-kola/
Garcinia kola contains some caffeine so it will brighten you up!
Joint Support
One thing I’ve learned over the years, from others and even from my own experience of knee pain after driving a car for 6 weeks with stiff, badly-aligned pedals, is that joints must be supported. Meaning there must be enough muscle strength around the joint to support it.
In fact it’s a preliminary treatment I suggest to anyone who is relatively inactive: to get some use out of the joint. By building the muscles, the joint is protected throughout its range of movement.
Believe it or not, my clinical experience is now backed up by a proper study of a tailored 12-week joint strengthening program from China. It found exercize was superior to NSAID treatments Celebrex, diclofenac and naproxen (Advil).
Study lead author Dr. Jing Chao of Hebei Medical University explains, “This study shows that exercise rehabilitation provides significant improvements in pain, other symptoms, and quality of life compared to that achieved by conventional treatments.”³
It might seem strange, working a painful joint to reduce the pain! But of course if you want to try this, you go gently at first and build up. Don’t do squats. They put huge pressure on the knee joint. Just walk!
Electronic Healing
Then we have some amazing new devices to help with healing of all kinds. But they basically stop inflammation, which leads to pain relief, as well as healing in other terms.
Chief among these, I would put the microcurrent (MCT) machines, such as the Avazzia family (formerly the Russian SCENAR). I regularly put out webinars on this family of devices and you can look at the latest video here.
I’m not quite so sanguine about TENS machines. It seems to me that the main mode of action is to make the nerves refractory (C pain fibers won’t fire off as they should). I say this somewhat timorously because my friend Normal Shealy invented TENS and he’s very proud of it!
Another class of electronic machines are those which use PEMF (pulsed electro-magnetic therapy; sometimes PEME or pulsed electro-magnetic energy). These flood the body with friendly energies. OK, but it always seems to me to be a bit like drugs (meds), that you hit the whole body with a “cure” whereas the actually problem may be just a headache, sore hip, bellyache or some other small area!
Anyway, let’s keep degeneration in check.
Regards,
Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby
The Official Alternative Doctor
References
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/09/02/what-years-gen-x-millennials-baby-boomers-gen-z/10303085002/
- J Orthop Surg Res. 2008 Jul 30;3:34. PMID: 18667082
- Chao J, Zhang J, Bai X, Yang P, Gong Q. Effect of Systematic Exercise Rehabilitation on Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Cartilage. 2021 Dec;13(1 Suppl):1734S-1740S. doi: 10.1177/1947603520903443
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