We don't like to complain.
We don't want to complain, but we do, about a lot of things. Number one on the list of complaints is
Pain. Sometimes it's just a nuisance, but other times it's a debilitating thief that steals any hope for a happy life.
From the trauma of birth, through teething and growing pains, to the normal bumps and bruises, we experience pain throughout life, and incredibly so at the end of life. Unfortunately for many of us the crushing of a body part in an accident takes pain to a whole new level.
Remedies abound, some of them work, most of them don't. Pharmaceutical varieties are expensive and have side effects that are many times just as debilitating as the pain. The Internet is cluttered with articles promoting the virtues of various pain remedies, natural remedies, herbal remedies with few if any side effects;
but do they work?
We decided to find out.
Do natural pain remedies actually work?
A Google search for "natural pain remedies" returned about 32 million results. We collected the top 20 articles (according to Google) and tabulated the results.
How We Ranked The Results.
This is a research report based on the articles we have reviewed. Internet articles, however well intended, do not provide sufficient evidence to 'prove' anything. Some articles, although we try to eliminate them from our lists, were written where a conflict of interest was present within the authors. In other words they were paid to present certain products as 'the best one'. Although in some articles a conflict is obvious, in other articles a conflict is subtle and difficult if not impossible to detect.
To mitigate the effects of conflicts or inaccuracies within the articles we selected we did not rank the products based on what
they suggest are the best. Instead, we ranked products by the number of articles that mentioned a product within the top 5 items of their rank within their article. Our rank is based on the number of mentions, not the ranking in the article.
We have linked a number of the source articles. Click the pictures below to see our top picks from these articles. We have also linked to the National Institute of Health to see what the government has to say about these remedies. Click the NIH logo to see their reports.
And then, since we actually want this article to be useful, we did the following:
- Source as many of these remedies as we can find.
- Where possible, verify that they have been tested and approved by an independent laboratory
- Where available find products that have a substantial discount.
- Where available provide links to the US National Institute of Health.
- Where available provide price comparison data such as price per pill or price per milligram/ounce.
This symbol, green circle with a check mark, will be added to product listings if the product has been laboratory tested and approved.
Here are our results.
Number 1 most recommended remedy
Turmeric (Curcumin)
The articles didn't always put Turmeric at the top of their list. As a group, however, Turmeric was prominently mentioned more often than any other product. Those mentions put Turmeric at the top of our list.
So what causes pain, anyway? Toothache? A bruise? A broken bone? A pulled muscle? Yes, all of those hurt; but look deeper. The real pain, that throbbing pain, isn't caused just by those injuries or infection. Most of the pain is caused by pressure, which is caused by swelling, which is caused by inflammation.
