Re: My own intense pain, inflammation and muscle spasm issues

 Thanks again for the good information.

Say, H, I was very interested in the information in your earlier post about Indian pipe and Lady's slipper.  Tell me more!

Indian pipe is rather hard to find. I have only seen one company ever sell it. I don't recall the name of the company, all I remember is that they were out of New York. Here are some links with information about the plant:

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/indian_pipe.htm

http://www.herbalist-alchemist.com/Products/Specific%20Indications/indianpipe...

Lady's slipper is an orchid with narcotic properties. It was taken off the general market several years back due its becoming endangered. There are still some wildcrafters out there selling the tincture online. I have used it in the past for sleep since most sleep herbs don't have any effect on me. Lady's slipper definitely does.

A couple of easier options that are much easier to obtain are scullcap and DL phenylalanine. I have not used scullcap for pain, but hear it works pretty well. DLPA is a precursor for dopamine. Studies have shown that after it kicks in, about 2 weeks, that is has strong and long lasting effects on pain. Being an amino acid it should be taken by itself at least 30 minutes before meals, 3 times daily for best results.

  Also, have you heard anything about a product known as Kratom (Mitragynine speciosa).  Although it is a sales site, when you read the story on this page (https://www.iamshaman.com/kratom/hydrocodone.htm), you could substitute my name for that of the author - because it describes almost exactly what I had been going through the past few weeks with a couple of compressed discs putting pressure on my sciatic nerve (with the result being both numbness and intense pain in my right calf muscle and entire foot and ankle area).  Instead of prescription hydrocodone, substitute 20 mg tablets (often two at a time) of diazepam and you can perhaps understand.

I have never looked in to kratom much. I have seen it on the ethnobotanical sites a few times, but I am not in to using those kind of things so I have no experience with it.

What really needs to be done is to rebuild and strengthen the discs. This can be done as long as the spine has not fused. If not what you really need to focus on more than anything is silica. Silica is best added to water and taken throughout the day since it is so poorly absorbed. Silica will help to increase collagen and elastin synthesis in the spinal discs. Vitamin C is also important, as it is also important for collagen and elastin synthesis. 

Now, I knew that diazepam (with occasional vodka and/or Crown Royal on the weekends) was not a long term solution - it simply made very intense pain bearable, but at a cost of being in a drained and zombie-like state just like that described in the link I gave above.  I am now happy to report that physical therapy from an outstanding chiropractor in San Antonio, along with a few herbal products and some wonderful advice from folks like Uniquity and Grzbear, have resulted in great improvements and I am at least partially functional again.  But still, if there are some better choices out there for pain relief, anti-inflammation, and/or muscle relaxers, it would be wonderful to know - not only for myself, but also for others who are seeking advice about such things.

The best muscle relaxants I am aware of are magnesium malate/citrate or kudzu root. For anti-inflammatory I like yucca root and licorice root, which are both steroidal anti-inflammatories. For pain, the stuff I already mentioned are the best in terms of effectiveness and safety. I did come up with a natural pain killer about 15 years ago to help methadone addicts go off cold turkey. They said it knocks out about 90% of their pain, so it is very strong. Problem is that one of the herbs is not only hard to access, but it is also very toxic. So it has to be used with great care. The proper part of the plant must be used, in the proper amount. And it must be mixed with the second herb, which increases the potency allowing for a lower dosage of the plant to be used, which reduces the toxicity. It must still be taken in low doses for safety. Due to the toxicity though I don't  tell people this formula. One time someone took a cup of tea and it knocked out most of their pain so they decided to drink a second cup even they had been warned not to. Did not kill him, but it did make him a little weird for a while. So I just don't trust people enough to do this without direct supervision.

As it is, I have developed a completely newfound appreciation and empathy for those who report living with intense pain.  Frannkly, I don't know how some of them do it!

Thanks in advance,

Tony