NSAIDs, Fish Oil and Pain

Most people come to our office because they are in pain, and they've tried just about everything to help themselves get better. But the pain remains, and even worse, the pain is typically at it's highest levels by the time they come in.

I would venture to guess that a vast majority of people at some time have taken over the counter pain medications to help get rid of the problem. But if you stop and think logically about it, taking pain medications only masks the problem, in addition research shows us that these medications, both prescription and over the counter, have many harmful effects associated with them... including death.

In a recent post The American Chiropractor touched base on this same topic and reviewed a research article titled:

Omega-3 Fatty Acids (Fish Oil) as an Anti-inflammatory: An Alternative to Non steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) for Discogenic Pain.

I wanted to highlight a few key points and recommend a few actions steps.

Please keep in mind that this article review only focus's on a small portion of the benefits gained with proper Omega 3 to Omega 6 balance. To learn and understand more join us this Monday, August 10th. You can see more details here.

Here are some of the points taken from Dr. Dan Murphy article review:

1. The use of NSAID’s is associated with extreme complications, including gastric ulcers, bleeding, myocardial infarction, stroke, and even death.

2. In this study, after seventy-five days on fish oil, 59% of patients who were taking NSAID’s for chronic spinal pain and who had degenerative spine disease were able to discontinue their prescription NSAID’s, and 88% stated they were satisfied with their improvement and that they would continue to take the fish oil.

3. The beneficial anti-inflammatory effects of high-dose fish oil include the reduction of joint pain from rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, improvement in dry eyes and macular degeneration, reduced plaque formation, reduced arrhythmia's, and reduced infarction from coronary atherosclerosis.

4. In this study, fish oil supplementation was not associated with any significant side effects.


Action Steps

1. Join us August 10th for our open workshop on The Importance of Omega 3's. All are welcome!

2. Become a student again. Realize that what we are told is good nutrition is only a small piece of the puzzle. If the typical recommendations for being healthy were accurate, then there would be very little sickness and disease. (By the way, we are currently the sickest species on the planet.)

3. Next time you're in our office, ask how you can find some of the best fish oil available.

4. Receive you regular adjustment. Chiropractic is not about pain, although it can help, chiropractic is a lifestyle and a method utilized to keep your body running at its optimal performance.

5. Share this information and your chiropractic story with your friends and loved ones. Currently, most people have heard of chiropractors but don't have a clear view of how chiropractic works.