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Health Tips - How to handle specific health conditions and more.

Neuralgia - An Holistic Approach

Neuralgia is pain brought about by damage to some part of the nervous system or to a specific nerve (as in the case of nerve damage from injury). The pain can be anything from a low level and intermittent to constant and debilitating.

According to herbalist David Hoffman, “most commonly it is due to a general debilitated condition brought about by wrong diet, stress and lack of rest”.

With this in mind, I offer the following suggestions. Some of them are in terms of life style changes, and these are of course meant to be long term and permanent changes to your daily routines.

Other suggestions, are meant to help give you relief from pain in a natural way, and some of these may be useful alongside those drugs prescribed by your doctor. However, please do not ever take herbal remedies whilst taking pharmaceutical drugs without first discussing them with your doctor and other health carers.

Having said this, herbal teas, and most supplements may be taken safely. Yet it is a matter of courtesy and wisdom to tell your doctor and health team what you are doing. If it works well for you, it may be so for others too.

Gentle re-balancing of body with Biochemical salts

One thing that may be helpful in reducing the pain of neuralgia, and could work on the underlying cause is to take Mag Phos biochemical salts.

These are made up of the salts that occur naturally in human tissue, and their use is thus completely safe and organic, so that they can be taken alongside any existing medication.

In my experience they work in much the same way that homeopathy works, on a very subtle deep level. That deep level can be extraordinarily effective in some cases and do nothing in others. However as the biochemical salts are free of any side effects, and will not interact negatively with anything else you are taking, I highly recommend trying them.

Nutrition

As neuralgia appears to go hand in hand with being generally run down, and this so often in the result of long term nutritional deficiencies, I would always recommend that a very good multivitamin and multi nutrient daily supplement be taken for at least three to six months.

After this time, it is advisable to continue taking a supplement at least twice a week to maintain nutritional health. A lack of the vitamin B complex is often associated with neuralgia. As our bodies age, they are less able to make good use of the food we eat, so this regular supplement should help you to maintain a good basic level of physical strength.

Diet

Some foods have been found to aggravate neuralgia, particularly caffeine, coffee, chocolate and nuts. And, of course, you may have a personal sensitivity to some food or foods. So it is always a good idea to take a note of everything you have eaten or drank in the 24 hours before an episode of extreme discomfort or pain. And, it is wise to note what you have eaten (or what you have avoided) when you are pain free or the discomfort is lessened.

Adding oats to your regular diet can help strengthen your nervous system. It is one of the best remedies for ‘feeding’ the nervous system, and is considered specific for debility and exhaustion when associated with depression.

Herbs for strengthening your system

It is essential that you check with you doctor before taking any herbal preparation. Although most common herbs will not give you any side effects themselves, when taken in combination with certain pharmaceutical drugs, there can be a bad reaction. A mismatch can cause undue problems and worsen your condition, so do consult with your doctor and any other health carers, and also monitor your own reactions - every one of us is individual, and we need to learn to listen to our bodies better.

Betony - strengthens nervous system also has sedative action. Will help neuralgia when due to a nervous disorder
Ginseng - anti depressive, used for general exhaustion and weakness

Herbs for pain relief

Passion Flower - can be very effective for nerve pain

St John’s Wort - its sedative and pain reducing effect makes it useful for neuralgia

Valerian - combined sedative and nervine

Lifestyle and stress

The most important change that you need to make in your life is your attitude toward stress. Life brings us all stress, and the tension that this can produce long term is often the root cause of many illnesses. It certainly plays a major part in worsening most conditions.

The reason for this is that few of us develop good patterns that allow us to face and release the worries and concerns that cause stress to become too much and to then begin to damage us physically through tension. To figure out how badly stress effects you, you need only sit quietly and feel how many muscles and parts of your body feel tight, tense, rigid or stiff.

Unfortunately, some of us have learned to “get on with it” so well that actually listening to how our body feels is foreign and can take some practice.

• Always the very first step is to promise yourself that you are in the process of change. This determination and intent is essential, and it is not quite as easy as you might suspect. Most of us have developed many patterns over the years whereby we avoid all uncomfortable issues, or simply tell ourselves that we are worriers and there is nothing we can do about it. Both of these are sad results of societal conditioning gone very wrong.

• It really is simple to exchange good habits for bad, and even simpler to create a healthier picture of yourself than ‘worry wart’. BUT you have to want to move forward.

• When you are ready to change, you will want to go steadily and in your own pace. I always begin with breathing awareness. This is an excellent first step for later meditation, mindfulness practice or any of a wide range of relaxation techniques.

1) Breathing gently

Start by finding a comfortable sitting position in an environment where you will not be disturbed. Allow yourself to simply sit still for a few moments, then turn you attention to your breathing.

You will want to change your breathing subtly so that you breath in slowly and gently into your diaphragm and lower lungs - the way to ensure that this is happening is to have one hand on your stomach. You should be able to feel a gentle rise under your hand.

Do not hold your breath in or out, but simply allow your breathing to flow slowly and gently.

Practice this regularly, until you realise that your “normal” breathing has changed and become deeper and slower.

2) Breathing and visualisation

The next step is to use your imagination. This is one of our greatest assets, yet many of us have been taught to ignore it as useless or fanciful or un-practical. That attitude could not be further from the truth, and learning to use our imaginations is immensely helpful in healing and growing.

The simplest and easiest breathing visualisation I know is to imagine to that as you breath in it is as if the tide is slowly rising, and as you breath out it is slowing falling. By concentrating on the images of the seaside, and the gentle surge and retreat of the tide, it allows your mind to enter a deeper level of calm and slows your breathing and heart rate so that your body is at rest.

There is no reason why you need go beyond this simple breathing exercise, but if it works very well for you, and you begin to see the benefit in a better ‘normal’ breathing pattern and a sense of being better rested, then you might like to try a breathing meditation.

Rest and exercise

Breathing exercises will be immensely helpful in helping you to manage the way you handle stress. However, you may find the need for other alternatives like meditation, the gentle movement and concentration of Tai Chi, yoga or any of several traditional eastern methods.

The secrets of good rest are being able to release thoughts - ie to stop fretting or worrying or even thinking about things, and the ability to release tension from your body. The reason why so many eastern practices can be helpful is because they work on both things at once. But there are plenty of alternatives - walking, swimming, dancing and gardening are just a few of the activities that people can find helpful to both mind and body. There is no one right way.

You will know that you have begun to achieve a better balance in your life when you do not have the time to worry, and when you are able to control the level of tension in your body. This will take you many months to achieve, so do not be discouraged.

Fill you life with activities that make you feel good, relaxed and happy or at least content) and work on self awareness. One of the simplest and most effective tricks to banishing worry is to sing or hum to yourself whenever you hear that nagging little voice inside your head. Of course this assumes that you acknowledge that you DO worry - some people are not even aware of doing so, yet they perpetually hold themselves physically and mentally tense.

Derby Stewart-Amsden
Ashwhin
March 2005

All the articles written by Derby Stewart-Amsden are FREE ACCESS on and off line - I would simply ask that you include the Bio and link information, Derby