The big problem with pain is figuring out how to remove it or, at a minimum, manage it. Some people make use of prescription narcotics. Others utilize over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers like Ibuprofen, Aleve, or Tylenol.
I recently (within the past 6 months) have developed an issue with one of my knees. For me it is not a joint issue, meaning it's not a meniscus tear, or arthritis, instead it's inflammation of a fluid-filled sac called a bursa. The bursa is a great little tool. It protects the ligaments riding on top of it from rubbing against whatever bone is beneath their insertion point. We've got them in a number of different spots. The issue comes when this bursa becomes inflamed. There isn't a whole lot of room for swelling in these spots, so any swelling creates intense pain, and unfortunately there isn't much you can do to relieve the pain aside from waiting for the swelling to go down.
I tried everything. First Tylenol, because I had some laying around and it usually works for my aches and pains. Next I tried Ibuprofen, even though it wasn't usually effective for me, because I wasn't getting relief from the Tylenol. When that didn't really do the trick, I moved onto Aleve, which may work great for pains that were relieved with Tylenol, but since mine wasn't relieved with Tylenol the Aleve was pretty useless too. Mind you I wasn't taking all of these on the same day - the Tylenol and Aleve most definitely isn't something you want to double up on (they are both processed through the liver).
So nothing was helping, and I was getting less and less sleep - as bursitis does a fabulous job of sending out shooting pains that wake you up in the middle of the night repeatedly. I had written a little on the anti-inflammatory benefits of Curcumin (the active component of Turmeric, the spice), but my mindset had focused more on reducing systemic inflammation that can lead to atherosclerosis and other diseases. I hadn't really thought too much about the benefits for pain relief as a serious anti-inflammatory herb. This began a few days of research reading. I tend to overlook personal accounts of benefit - like what you might find all over the internet - and dig deeper for research studies showing results.
The animal studies I found showed benefit in rats who had laboratory-induced arthritis and were then supplemented with Curcumin. Humans who were given either Curcumin or Ibuprofen seemed to show similar relief of pain for their arthritis as well. In fact in the human study it was showing a mg:mg benefit - meaning for every 400 mg of ibuprofen they showed the same relief with 400 mg of Curcumin. Interesting. So this is where I started. And at this range I was not showing much of any relief. I was taking in a 500 mg capsule in the morning and then a few hours later would do another - but was never getting past the pain. It was frustrating. I still wasn't sleeping. Ugh. It made me wonder whether perhaps the placebo effect was taking over with the participants in that study. They perceived they would feel less pain, and thus reported less pain. Grrrr.
A few days later, overtired and seeking relief, I went digging for more data. This is where I started coming across actual level of Curcumin that were needed for pain relief. This was no low level, few 100 mg's, it was some serious consumption of 3000, 6000, 8000, and 12000 mg. The dose of 3000 mg of this stuff made my consumption look like a joke. No wonder I hadn't felt any better! These studies were showing dramatic improvement in pain, even bone-on-bone issues where the patient should have felt pain but instead only complained of joint stiffness. So I started upping my intake. On that day I started with 2000 mg, and then ever 1-2 hours I would take another 1000 mg until I noticed a difference. For me it was right around 5000-6000 mg where I noticed that I didn't notice the pain anymore. The studies had shown a relatively short life of the Curcumin in your system, with limited effect after 12 hours - which just told me that prior to going to bed I might want to consume a little more. The past few nights I can say that my sleep hasn't been uninterrupted by the bursitis pain, but I've only awoken one time each night to reposition and fell right back to sleep - instead of crying in desperation and eventually crashing after about an hour of wakefulness in the middle of the night.
Now this sounds great, but what's the catch, right? Well the reason why try to avoid overdoing it with the Tylenol and Ibuprofen is the possible side effects. Too much of either can seriously irritate your stomach - some people even develop ulcers and subsequent bleeding - and the Tylenol has to be processed through your liver which could effect the health of that organ too. The Curcumin (or Turmeric) doesn't irritate the stomach and is metabolized as a food substance which is less detrimental to your organs than a synthetically generated medication. In the studies, the only side effects seen were at the 12000 mg level and seemed to just be the occasional complaint of diarrhea. Hmmmm. So those taking 8000 mg or less didn't really complain of any issues, even when taking the supplement for 6+ months straight. I will say that after having taken 6000-8000 mg per day for the past few days the only complaint I have is the occasional burp after swallowing the capsule - which tastes like death. ;) You would think swallowing a pill full of a spice like Turmeric would make it taste like Indian food, but nope! Oh and the color of your poop might be a little surprise. Kind of a yellow/orange color when you are ingesting that much bright orange spice.
What would I recommend? Well... if you're dealing with pain, why not give it a shot? It's not going to hurt you. And for those taking prescription medications to deal with pain, if the Curcumin takes the edge off the pain so that you can now manage it with OTC meds, wouldn't that be a step in the right direction?
The capsules seem to be the best route. I would look for one that is 1000mg + per capsule. My original experiment with this supplement utilized 500mg capsules, which makes for swallowing a lot of pills if you're trying to get to 6000mg per day. The other thing to look for is a supplement that contains piperine as it helps to increase the bioavailability (ability of your body to access the active component of the supplement). Black Pepper is one ingredient that can accomplish this.
So I did find that I could get away with closer to 4000 mg when taking the supplement with the black pepper in it. This certainly isn't a perfect system for testing it - as it could be that my pain is finally starting to go down a bit too - but for now I'm liking the Nature's Sunshine supplement more than the one I found at my local vitamin shop.
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