solotripper wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2012 at 6:36pm:

I do not believe that Western med has the only keys to the kingdom.  What it does have is the burdon of proof.  The ability to say what and how and to be able to replicate those results.

Much of the unregulated world goes by the spurious logic found in the shark cartilage for arthritis example.  Sharks don't get arthritis egro their cartilage must cure/treat arthritis.  Yeah.  Right.  Sharks don't have bones.

An unregulated industry makes all sorts of claims without any proof at all.  Not even the burdon of proof.

Modern science can explain it, if it does in fact work.  They just need to do a study.  So when they show me a double-blind study on tart cherry extract I'll believe it actually does what the study says it does.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying that I was unable to find any proof that it works.  The proof may be out there, I just didn't find it.  I'm not about to spend a lot of time looking for it either.  It's not my money.

Beware of the abuse of 'natural' as having any real meaning.  Folks used to chew willow bark for fever & pain.  It works because it has ASA in it.  It's the same ASA that you'll find in Aspirin.  Your body doesn't know the difference, fewer splinters in your teeth.

Do you take vitamin pills?  They're not 'natural'.  They have been manufactured for a century.  There's no difference between the vitamin you get from a carrot and what you get from Flintsone's Chewables or Centrum.

Natural is often the worst way to treat the problem.  Uncontrolled dosage being the major issue.

That being said, eat fruit!  Eat lots of fruit.  It's good for you.  Chock full of good sugars and water and vitamins and fibre.

Nobody is advocating taking natural remedies that have little or no studies behind them or what the native People relied on Empirical Evidence. There are some snake oil things out there but a little research and you can easily find the ones that have withstood the test of time.

Double Blind studies cost big bucks. No drug company is going to spend the money proving something they can't patent and is available for cheap is as comparable or better than a drug they can make for pennies and sell for big money. Imagine if people could grow their own medicines in the backyard garden, that wouldn't do would it.

Even if tart cherry juice is just a potent source of anti-oxidants what do you have to lose as long as you don't go overboard with it?

All or most folk remedies that have proven effective over the generations are based on real science, even though at the time it was just the old if it works, try it again method.

Clove oil is the pain reliever in over the counter dental medication. You get a tiny little vial for big bucks compared to it's quantity. I got an iodine sized bottle of pure Clove Oil for cheap at the health food store.
Wouldn't go on a wilderness trip without it.

When my Dad was a kid, back in the Depression days on the farm, they didn't have medical insurance and the money for common injuries all farmers suffer. They would get a bad cut/boil etc, Grandma made a poultice out of stale homemade/whole grain bread and unpasteurized milk warmed and then put on the bread until it was like a mush. Wrapped in sterile bandage and put on the wound. Next day the infection was gone.
Why? This concoction made a crude form of penicillin, a wonder drug back in those days before the overuse of anti-biotic's made it necessary to find more potent drugs.

Sty in your eye? You rubbed it with a real silver spoon and it cleared up. Real silver is soft, rub it over eye and tiny amounts of silver get in eye. Silver nitrate is the main ingredient in over the counter sty medicine.
Do a little research about natural remedies and you'll find that more often than not, they have a natural ingredient that when isolated and distilled is the main ingredient in prescription medicine.

That's why herbs/natural things take longer to work, there not as potent. They also don't have the nasty side effects most prescription drugs have, unless you abuse them.
One thing to remember, herbs are drugs. Natural doesn't mean that you can take all you want without consequence. If it says 3x a day with meals, you treat it like you would prescription medicine.

For all Western medicine's expertise and knowledge, every year they pull supposedly safe drugs off the market, becasue even after so called double blind studies and millions in R+D, they're found to do more harm than good.

dd, It's smart to ask your DR if there's a possible problem with taking that tart extract. He may or may not know enough about natural products to give you an answer. I know your better half is a yoga instructor and I would bet she knows people that are knowledgeable about that kind of thing? After all it wasn't that long a go that Yoga was considered some weird practice with no physical/health benefits. Intelligent people now know that couldn't be farther from the truth.

I have bought it by the quart at fruit stands in Wisconsin. It taste good but watch out for the sugar. It will sometimes crystalize in the jar.  If it is heated it will return to a liquid.

knafelc,

Thanks for the advice but I guess each situation is a little different.  "Walking" actually aggravates my problem.  My sciatic nerve "pinch" is most pronounced when I stand erect (a bone spur locks into a bad place).  That & any serious pounding my feet might do both inflame what little shock absorber material that remains in & around the disks in my lower back are the main culprits.  Running is actually slightly easier for me due to the slightly bent posture (less pressure from bone spur).

You're right about core strength & upper body strength helping matters; I work on both almost everyday.  Even though I am heavier than I've ever been, I can do more (legit) pull-ups than I've ever done in my life.  Even so, I still have bad days the best exercise I am able to do (and I ALWAYS do at least an hour & one-half per day) is on a recumbent stationary bike.  After a few days doing non-standing exercise & enough doses of Aleve, I generally recover enough to go back to regular routines.

**********

Hey, I DO have a personal story on "natural" healing processes that might be worth something to someone out there.

So, many years ago I came down with the absolute worst case of Planters Warts on the bottom of my feet that anyone has ever seen.  Many dozens of the doggone things on both feet.  I tried pills, ointments, & about every non-prescription remedy available at the drug store.  Then I went the doctor route.  More pills, lotions, etc... everything short of surgery.  Then I bust my ankle playing basketball and the podiatrist convinces me that, since I laid-up anyway, I should let him just cut the danged things off.  So I do that... and nearly bleed to death (but that is a separate story that my wife tells better than I do).

So, I do ALL of the above but the ugly things STILL come back and in greater numbers!  I felt like a 13th century plague victim & began wondering if maybe the warts were the first stages of leprosy or something worse.

THEN, somebody steers me to a nationally-known dermatologist.  I repeat my saga of woe to him.  He say "Hmmmm..." and scratches his beard in meditative thought.  "Those are the exact same things I would have tried", he says.  "Looks like we've got to go with Plan B."

The doc calls his nurse into the office and asks me one simple question: "Are you allergic to poison ivy?"

My simple answer was: "Hell yes!"

He replied, "Good!"  Then he instructs Nurse Jane to "grab the brown bottle", which she does & hands it to him.  Then the doc starts lathering my feet with this dark brown fluid.

"What's up, Doc?"

"I'm giving you a very mild case of poison ivy, young man."

"The hell you say!" says I.  "I get that crap really bad!!"

"Well, that's probably a good thing and, yes, I am," he states & proceeds to inform me that - in about 50% of the cases - persons who are allergic to poison ivy will LOSE THEIR WARTS when their body deals with the poison ivy.  "We don't exactly know WHY it works but it does often work," he concludes.

About one week later my warts - the plague of my life for 2-3 years - were completely gone.  They have been gone ever since.

Moral of the story: if you have a bad case of Planters Warts, consider going straight to "Plan B" on your own.  You might just save yourself a $200 doctor visit by simply walking barefoot through a local patch of poison ivy.


Jimbo