PROSTAGLANDIN: THE PAIN CHEMICAL Battling pain is essentially battling a chemical in your body called prostaglandin, the cause of inflammation. Pain relievers whether they are over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription strength (Rx), are rather effective at negating the effects of prostaglandin, the cause of your pain. In our office we spend a lot of time interviewing you about your condition. There are many areas we ask you about when you present with pain.

While using pain relievers may be a very short-term, viable option, medicating pain with anti-inflammatory medications without making nutritional or postural changes is not sustainable.

WHY DOES MY PAIN KEEP COMING BACK?

Your pain may keep returning because many foods in the typical American diet ALSO produce prostaglandin in the body. So popping pain relievers without using other strategies to reduce prostaglandin can lead to a chronic state of pain that doesn't resolve.

Even more important than a bad diet, there are misalignments in the skeleton that your body cannot fix, no matter how much you exercise or stretch, because there isn't a muscle that can realign in that direction. That is why you have to keep stretching or else the pain or tightness always returns.

One of the oils from fish, called EPA, actually prevents a step in the pathway that makes prostaglandin. However, there are many mistakes people make when taking omega 3 or fish oil supplements. There is exhaustive information on using fish oils correctly.

CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENTS RELIEVE INFLAMMATION

Medical journals have documented that constricted arteries cause prostaglandin production. Chiropractic adjustments lead to pain relief by causing constricted arteries to relax. This decreases prostaglandin and thus inflammation.

When patients start taking sufficient doses of fish oils, their pain relief improves more than when they were only getting adjusted.

In the pathway to making prostaglandin, there are many points of entry - insulin, antibiotics, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable oils, fat from meats, white sugar and white flour all stimulate one of the steps that leads to inflammation.

OMEGA 3s REVERSE INFLAMMATION

There is one major point in the same pathway that actively REDUCES inflammation--EPA, the essential fatty acid that only comes from cold-water fish, though small quantities of flax oil can be converted inside your body to EPA.

Maximizing both sides of this equation by decreasing the bad ones and increasing the good ones is the ultimate recipe for pain relief.

As a patient in our office, the more you understand all of the causes of pain and how to correct them, the better your results will be.