rebhomeopath
- Mar 19, 2023
- 4 min read

Managing Pain - the medfree way

A few days ago, a patient asked me what I do for headaches. I told her that I drink a glass of water with liquid electrolytes added for fast delivery. If I don’t have liquid electrolytes, I add a bit of mineral rich salt to a glass of water and drink it, and that usually does the trick, often faster than a pill.

“What about headaches caused by muscular tension”, she asked. I take magnesium as a supplement or mag-phos tissue salts (low potency homeopathic) if the pains are cramping and I’m craving warmth or pressure. Or I take mag-mur homeopathic if I’m feeling liverish, constipated, old, worn out and the headache is bursting. If my headache is caused by a change in air pressure before a storm, to which I am sensitive, then I just push through- though there are remedies for that too. She was impressed that sometimes I don’t take anything, but that wasn’t always the case. I trained myself to do that.

I have quite a low pain threshold so for many years I was prone to popping a pill every time I had a headache, period pain or general muscular discomfort. Apart from that, I like the numb pain-free place pain killers take me to, after all, life can be quite painful - both emotionally and physically and since I neither drink alcohol nor take cannabis, I thought my vice quite reasonable. I have gone through long periods of taking codeine, both as a painkiller and recreationally, until I realized one day that the codeine withdrawal itself was causing pain, so I went cold turkey and I stopped. And in doing so, there were things I had to face about my need to escape emotional and physical discomfort, and about my addiction. Again, I pushed through, like one does when you decide to give up sugar or cigarettes. Apart from taking a single non steroid anti-inflammatory (like Nurofen) following a molar tooth extraction recently, I very rarely take pills.

But it’s also okay to take a pill occasionally, especially if it offers much needed relief and gives you a chance to catch your breath and continue under certain unavoidable pressures. The issue is that if you continue to sweep your symptoms under the rug, and suppress them continuously, you risk overriding the system. In his book, Levels of Health, world renowned homeopath George Vithoulkas says the following:

“The homeopath must realize that nothing happens without purpose in the organism.

He continues, "Every symptom appears because it is the best possible avenue of counteracting disease that the organism has chosen. The defense mechanism will automatically produce the necessary and most appropriate reaction for the specific imbalance at the time of stress. From the moment of intervention with chemical drugs, free expression is obstructed, and the mechanism will need to rearrange itself and take the next possible line of defense. However, this new opportunity for symptom expression will always transpire on a deeper level than the previous one. Therefore, the primary goal of the defense mechanism is to keep the disturbance away from the more vital organs and in the peripheral areas such as the skin, mucous membranes, or muscles. If the organism is not allowed to express symptoms on a more superficial level, it will eventually concede and create symptoms on a deeper level, effecting more essential organs. “

So when we continue to take suppressive medication, we risk pushing the disturbance deeper into the body. Most medicines are suppressive by their very nature. We can tell just looking at their descriptive names; non-steroid anti-inflammatories, protein pump inhibitors, cholesterol absorption inhibitors, enzyme blocking statins, and pain killers. Paracetamol targets the nervous system, crosses the blood brain barrier, and inhibits the production of prostaglandin, a hormone like lipid that amongst other things, regulates inflammation. Vithoulkas suggests that over time, the suppression of the inflammatory response leads to the development of chronic disease. When the body is prevented from raising a fever or producing a strong inflammatory response, the disturbance penetrates deeper, which explains the famous statement by the father of medicine Hippocrates who said, “Give me a fever and I can cure any disease”.

So what can you do when you or your family have toothache, headaches, stomach aches, sore muscles, growing pains, or pain from injury? Homeopathy has remedies for almost all acute pain symptoms. Surprisingly, it can even be suppressive if taken over a long period or used incorrectly. Check with your homeopath, especially if you or your child is under chronic or constitutional care. The expression of an acute during this time means something important and suppressing it may not be in order.

Pain plays an important role in alerting us to the fact that something is wrong. If pain persists seek medical or in severe cases emergency care. But often pain is caused by incorrect lifestyle, bad habits and dependency and withdrawal from sugar, processed foods, and pharmaceuticals. The body gets used to the mild cortisone nasal spray you’ve been using since you had that cold a few months ago, or the headache pills you take every time you don’t get a good night’s sleep, or the cortisone cream you use to suppress those eczema outbreaks. Breaking that dependence often causes increased inflammation, discomfort and pain. I encourage you to make the move and give up the chemicals on which you have come to depend and replace them with more natural, plant based or homeopathic (highly diluted) remedies which have no lasting negative side effects, and which will strengthen your organism so you will be able to respond to disturbances in the healthiest possible way.

Following are some charts you can print out for fast reference to pain management with homeopathic remedies. See my patient information pages for dosing instructions here. Follow Water Dosing for Acutes or Emergency Instructions.