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Today, our never-ending quest to help you relieve and heal your pain continues.
And if this is your intro to The Feel Good Lab, welcome friend. You might want to take 90 seconds and check out this video about our story—then, all this quest business will make more sense.
Ok, back to our quest to rid the world of pain.
Today, we turned to a really cool site called AskWonder.com.
Wonder, as they call themselves, is a site where you can ask any question on the planet and for a small fee a network of analysts around the world will research and answer your question.
We couldn't resist.
Below is the exact question we asked.
Why this question? Let's break it down.
Because who doesn't love a nice list?
We're not into any of that woo woo stuff. We want some hard evidence. And we think you do too.
Couple reasons. We wanted to be specific. Too general and we risk not helping anyone. Something that works for a 20-year-old man in the prime of his life is probably not the same technique that will work for me or you.
Second, thousands of women in their 40s use our pain relief cream. So, we wanted to find techniques that would be perfect for them to pair with our product for the ultimate pain relieving combination.
There are SO many types of pain out there. But many of these types of pain are tied together by one thing, inflammation. So, by being specific here, we actually can help the most people.
How many times have you read the same ol' advice? Heck, we're guilty of sharing some of that stuff too (sorry, we had to start somewhere). So, we thought, "what are we missing?" There's got to be some stuff out there beyond the basics. Stuff that if you're 1,000% serious about relieving your pain you might try. That's what we were hoping to uncover here.
Below, in purple, are the answers we received from AskWonder.com, with some commentary from me along the way.
Hello! Thanks for your question about surprising or uncommon scientifically-proven techniques for a 45-year-old woman to reduce physical pain caused by inflammation. The short version is that I identified five such techniques where are turmeric, acupuncture, capsaicin products, music therapy, and drinking red wine. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
First reaction is, no surprise about turmeric or red wine. These things tend to pop up often when you search for things to relieve pain. In fact, we've already covered them in our articles, The 5 Best Foods for Arthritis and The Effects of Avocados and Red Wine on Inflammation.
To answer your question, I researched academic databases, industry reports, trusted media sites, and government reports/databases. As requested, I have focused on options that are both scientifically-proven and also uncommon. My findings below will detail what I learned about techniques for a 45-year-old woman to reduce physical pain caused by inflammation. After identifying the potential techniques, I searched medical databases and journals to verify that the techniques had scientific research to support them. My findings are detailed below.
Ok, I dig this methodology. Exactly what we like to see.
Truthfully, we haven't heard a lot about acupuncture from our customers. If you've tried it, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a message and maybe we can work out a deal to help you test out pairing You Plus Relief with your acupuncture regime.
Another less common technique for a woman in her mid-forties to use in managing the pain of inflammation from a variety of conditions is capsaicin, the spicy component found in chili peppers. Topical capsaicin products have been shown effective in treating the pain associated with fibromyalgia and some types of arthritis.
In the last few years, there have been multiple studies on the efficacy of capsaicin in managing pain. One study published in NCBI showed that capsaicin had anti-inflammatory properties similar to those of diclofenac, a known anti-inflammatory drug. Another study from the same site supports the use of capsaicin in osteoarthritis patients. That study found topical capsaicin reduced pain in osteoarthritis patients for up to 20 weeks without significant side effects. Topical capsaicin is a very easy-to-use pain management option for the majority of patients no matter their age or gender.
We looked closely at capsaicin when we created You Plus Relief. It shows promise and works for many people. However, when we tested it in our formula many people had issues with it. Warming sensations lasted too long and led to discomfort or lack of sleep if applied before bed. At the time, we weren't sure if this was due to allergic reactions or if the ingredient just wasn't jiving with others in our formula. Our theory was that because You Plus Relief penetrates the skin so deeply it was pulling the capsaicin too deep and causing problems. That doesn't make capsaicin bad, but our advice would be to proceed carefully if you're going to experiment with it.
Perhaps the most surprising technique for pain management that I found is the use of music therapy. According to Alicia Ann Clair,PhD of the University of Kansas, music can help with both short-term and chronic pain. "'Music won't eliminate the need for pain relievers,' Clair says. 'But it may help them be more effective.'"
While the mechanics of how music helps are still being evaluated, studies have shown that it does work. Some research has suggested that the emotional impact of music produces a sort of analgesic effect in patients and reduces their pain.
Another study, focusing largely on women in their 50s and 60s, showed that participation in music therapy with musical instruments had a positive effect on rheumatoid arthritis patients' pain levels. Music therapy is a widely accessible pain management option for a 45-year-old woman as it can include anything from private listening sessions to more structured therapy classes.
This makes sense to us. Music has a therapeutic effect the same way that meditation can have a real physical effect on your body.
We often recommend that if you're not into meditation yet you can try this simple trick to get a lot of the same benefits.
Go to a quiet place where you will not be interrupted. Sit upright in a chair with your hands in your lap. Put on your favorite song—headphones or speakers, it doesn't matter. Close your eyes and focus on the song. Nothing else. Listen to every word. Every note. Stay focused on just the song all the way to the end. That's meditation—essentially. Do that every day for several days and see how you feel.
The mental focus and clearing your mind, even for just minutes a day, has been shown to help with mood, happiness, and clarity.
Research has identified an active ingredient in red wine, resveratrol or RSV, which may help patients relieve their pain. RSV's anti-inflammatory properties can help red wine drinkers prevent or manage a variety of inflammatory conditions that may cause them pain. These include rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and gout.
One recent study focused on resveratrol saying that it "has potent analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities and could be a potential new drug candidate for the treatment of inflammation and pain." A separate NCBI-published study evaluated how RSV injections affected inflammatory arthritis in rats and found that it performed better and resulted in less swelling than was seen in rabbits not injected with RSV. The amount of resveratrol a person needs to consume may be impractical to achieve by drinking wine as it has been estimated at 40L of wine a day. Fortunately, pain sufferers would likely find one of the supplement pills available more convenient to incorporate into their pain management plan.
Another vote for red wine, we won't argue—even if it's just for mental sanity.
But everything in moderation. Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Body, recommends no more than 2 glasses of red wine per night. And I agree. When I dropped 20 pounds in 4 months by changing my nutrition I indulged in a bit of red wine regularly and it didn't seem to affect progress.
Wonder didn't cover these things, but we're seeing them pop up more and more in our research and plan to cover them at some point. In the meantime, if you fancy yourself a savvy Googler, you might want to check out the items on the list below. But beware, the rabbit hole goes deep.
All in all, I feel like Wonder did a good job. I'd try them again. What do you think? And if you're in pain, I hope you found the info they dug up useful.
