If you suffer from constant pain, you’re probably wondering if there’s a better way to manage that pain.
Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of new products hit the market to help with pain relief. That includes treating everything from muscle aches to abrasions, psoriasis and contact dermatitis to localized eczema. Many times, the pain agents began as an injected or oral drug and were later reformulated to be used topically. If you walk down any pharmacy aisle, you’ll probably see all kinds of over-the-counter products for sale, from gels and creams to ointments. Topical versions are sometimes preferable because it takes some of the worry out of drug interactions and adverse events when compared to oral versions of a drug.
People have also been known to turn to natural ingredients for mild to moderate pain relief, including using ginger and turmeric.
In more recent years, you’ve probably seen more and more capsaicin products on the market, in the form of gels, creams, ointments, and patches. Capsaicin, of course, is the hot part of chili peppers. When you eat a pepper high on the hot pepper scale, you may feel a different type of pain, in the form of a burning mouth and tongue. With a capsaicin pain relief product, the capsaicin is used in another way. In topical form, it’s been known to help with things like joint pain, arthritis, diabetic neuropathy, and muscle pain. Capsaicin patches are already approved by the FDA to treat nerve pain.
Now, cannabinoids are emerging as another potential option for pain relief.
While these types of products aren’t usually very effective in terms of combating deep tissue pain, they do show promise in terms of targeting localized pain. Based on recent research, scientists have seen some positive results in using CBD gels for arthritis pain in rats. Another small study found some promise in using topical CBD to treat neuropathic pain in humans.