So a big trend in natural medicine is using Turmeric to cure or relieve a number of different illness and discomforts. There have been a number of studies done regarding it's use as a complimentary run along in standard cancer treatments, and even a case of one woman using Turmeric alone to beat cancer. Needless to say it's fascinating to those of us who have an interest in natural medicine as a remedy. But does it work for the myriad of things it claims to? My main interest was it's applications for treating arthritis and chronic pain. So I set out to see if it would work.
Background
Though I'm only in my late 30's I've led a pretty intense life. Due to work place hazards by the time I was in my early 20's I had sustained a series of pretty serious injuries. Several ribs on my left side had been shattered, several on the right side were broken and cracked, and I had a series of foreign objects lodged in my back. Some are still there today as they were to close to my spine to remove. After the particular bad day at the office I was left with a lung capacity that was nascent as one lung had collapsed, a long period of physical recovery, physical therapy, and of course a lot of pain. I later would be involved in a car accident that did not help matters. It took a long time to get back to the things I love doing in life, and even today chronic arthritic pain is a constant.. especially when autumn and winter roll around.
Throughout all this I have had doctor after doctor prescribe everything from codeine, Tramadol, to morphine for pain management. One look at my chest X rays and medical history and most doctors hand me a refill as needed script for one of the drugs listed above. As fun as this may sound to some, it's really not. Opioids leave one in a perpetual haze that sucks the enjoyment straight out of life. You end up operating at half speed with everything you do, meditation or prayer for that matter don't feel the same or are impossible, your appetite goes down, healthy sleep disappears, depression looms around every corner.... and they can make one a giant gaping asshole when one comes down from them.
So like many in a position where modern medicine isn't doing the trick I began looking at natural remedies that wouldn't leave me in that horrible landscape. I've tried things like Blue Lotus, Willow bark tea, Cramp Bark aka Guelder Rose, etc. They each had their merit, but I wanted something that wouldn't hurt my stomach or leave me to tanked like Blue Lotus can so I started looking at Turmeric. So the research began, and I realised this wasn't going to be cheap if I was going to do it right. Next I realised I was going to have to be disciplined with it, and not miss a dose if I was going to accurately suss out it's effectiveness as a therapy for pain management. This part wouldn't be to hard as I boxed competitively for years, and easily could be disciplined with the whole timed eating to dose thing. I'd just treat it as a mindset no different than when I had to drop or gain weight with training.
Starting Out
So after extensive reading I jumped online and ordered 19 bottles of Turmeric from ZipVit and began a schedule of the following:
Turmeric 10,000 mg. 95% Curcuminoids = 475mg of Curcumin
5 tablets a day = 25 tablets a day spaced out every three hours
This ensured my body took in 11.5 grams of Curcuminoids every 24 hours.
Total costs of 19 bottles of 10,000mg Turmeric with bioperine £436.00
To give you guys an idea of what all of this looks like regarding quantity of daily dose and bottles ordered I took some pics you can see below.
Week 8 Now
So I'm currently in week 8 of this experiment and I have to say I have noticed drastic changes. First off after the first week I stopped needing to take any non inflammatory meds. Autumn is here in the UK so it's wet and starting to get chilly, and so far I haven't even needed a Tylenol or anything for that matter. Through out the course of this I have also been dry. No booze basically as I wanted to be clean throughout the process... well except caffeine of course. I love my coffee. But none the less I have found the changes massive. I genuinely don't think I will be needed to take anything through the coming winter if this stays the norm. The change hasn't just been in feeling less arthritic pain, I also have noticed no headaches, limited congestion from allergies, and an over all feeling of mobility I haven't had in years. My run times have improved, pull ups are way easier and less painful, time on the bench is far easier, and I'm not having to work as hard to cope with pain when doing day to day tasks. Basically the constant background discomfort is practically turned down to mute. Oh, and unintended but noticeable thing was the eczema I had on my leg disappeared . Wasn't an aim in this exercise, but I'm happy it's gone.
Down Sides.
There always are some with any therapy or med natural or not, and it's no different here. First off it's wise to eat something for ballast with each dose. Turmeric can be hard on the gut, and a good supplement will have Bioperine in it to increase the bioavailabilty of the Curciminoids thus assisting your body absorbing them. Bioperine is basically black pepper extract, so that combined with the Turmeric can give you a sore gut if it's not taken with food. I found this out the hard way.
Next of course is the cost. This ain't cheap. I stuck with the dosing routine with militant discipline as it was expensive and I hate waste. But if one is going to take this route then brace for a sting. I winced at the purchase, but I honestly feel like it was money well spent at this point.
Conclusion.
So there is hype around this method of treatment but it seems warranted when using it for pain management. Well for me it is. I'm sold. But this isn't medical advice for you guys, I'm just sharing an experiment my end and saying what works for me. It's all down to the individual and any issues they may have interfering with trying this.
What I found is if you start a heavy regime you're looking at about a week before you notice feeling different. For me it sorta snuck up. I was out running and realised that when I woke up I didn't feel the usual aches in pains when rolling out of bed, and that running and breathing wasn't hurting with every intake of breath. Later I noticed that carrying things around the garden felt way easier and that I wasn't feeling any aches at all. This has been a consistent effect throughout the experiment so I feel like it was a great decision and probably will stick it. So all in all a success and I'll be carrying forward with the Turmeric in the future. It's money well spent.
Well guys that's it for this post. If you have made it this far thank you so much for reading. I look forward to checking out all the awesome stuff you wonderful folks put up in the Natural Medicine community. Best of luck with your posts and projects.
image credits not in order:
life magazine
global news
psychology today
post cartoon institute
my ipad photos
zipvit