The Alternative Medicine Cabinet: Arnica for Pain Relief

This is an excerpt from a recent New York Times Blog.

More than a third of American adults use some form of complementary or alternative medicine, according to a recent government report. Natural remedies have an obvious appeal, but how do you know which ones to choose and whether the claims are backed by science? Today, New York Times “Really?” columnist Anahad O’Connor begins a weekly series exploring the claims and the science behind alternative remedies that you may want to consider for your family medicine cabinet.

The Remedy: Arnica

The Claim: It relieves pain.

Click here to read the full article:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/the-alternative-medicine-cabinet-arnica/?hp

Healing the Hurt, Naturally

NBC10 Philadelphia’s Dawn Timmeney

More and more people are turning to a homeopathic remedy for pain. They say the results are dramatic for bumps, bruises and all kinds of sports injuries.

Introducing…new Arnica and Muscle Therapy Products

Stay Active with Hyland’s New Arnica-based Products!

Hyland’s new Arnica-based products provide natural pain relief for aches, pains, muscle soreness, bruising, and inflammation that may occur with regular activities or workouts.  These great new products also help speed your recovery from injuries, trauma and overexertion.

Key Benefits:
Speeds Recovery – Get back on your game and back on track more quickly.
Advance Defense - Use before your workout or a physical activity to minimize soreness and pain later.  Also use again after workouts to alleviate stiffness and strain.
Natural Pain Relief
Non Habit-Forming, Drug-Free, Safe
No Aspirin, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen or Naproxen
No Salicylates, counterirritants, or Capsaicin

Hyland’s Arnica 30X Tablets – relieves the symptoms of muscle pain, soreness, bruising and swelling due to injuries and overexertion.  Our unique, quick-dissolving tablets melt quickly under the tongue.  The tablets are also perfect to dissolve in your water and take as you enjoy your workout or other activities.

Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Strips with Arnica – new, innovative quick-dissolving oral strips are easy-to-use and convenient for your on-the-go lifestyle.  The strips dissolve instantly on the tongue and come in handy, one-dose packages.  Use to reduce swelling, minimize bruising and ease muscle and joint soreness.

Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Gel with Arnica – The same great formula in the Muscle Therapy Strips is also offered in a topical gel for on-the-spot relief! It’s a quick-absorbing gel and odorless, so you can use and get on with your day!

Hyland’s products will get you going again in no time!

Arnica 30x Tablets

Hyland’s Arnica 30X offers 100% natural pain relief without the long list of side effects of conventional pain medications. Our new pain relief formula speeds your recovery from injuries and trauma, getting you back in the game sooner! The tablets dissolve quickly in the mouth and treat a wide range of injuries, including joint & muscle soreness, bruising and swelling, stiffness, back ache, fatigue and inflammation. Arnica 30X is an ideal choice for every day pain or for an acute injury. You can take it before activity to minimize pain later!   For more information on Arnica montana, visit www.arnica.com.

Key Benefits:

• Advance Defense- use before activity
• Speeds Recovery
• Natural Pain Relief
• Easy / pleasant to take quick dissolving tablets
• Non Habit-Forming, Drug-Free, Safe
• No Aspirin, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofin or Naproxen
• No Salicylates, counterirritants, Capsaicin or glucosamine/chondroitin.

Indications for Use: Temporarily relieves the symptoms of muscle pain, soreness, bruising and swelling due to injuries and over exertion.

Active Ingredients:

Arnica Montana 30X HPUS Joint & muscle soreness; pain; aches & pains; swelling; bruising; stiffness; inflammation; back ache; trauma & fatigue…

…in a base of Lactose (milk sugar), N.F.

Available in bottles of 50 quick dissolving tablets.

Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Gel with Arnica

Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Gel with Arnica provides topical relief of muscle soreness, bruising and swelling due to overexertion or injury. It contains Arnica - the first natural remedy for swelling, bruising and trauma and has a light, pleasant smell. Provides natural, safe and effective pain relief, absorbs quickly and is never greasy.

Key Benefits:

• Contains Arnica - the first natural remedy for swelling, bruising and trauma
• Feels great on the skin
• Absorbs Quickly - never greasy
• No salicylates, counterirritants, capsaicin or glucosamine chondroitin - 100% Natural

Indications for Use: Temporarily relieves the symptoms of muscle pain, soreness, bruising and swelling due to injuries and over exertion.

Active Ingredients:

Arnica Montana 2x HPUS - stiffness; pain; trauma; bruising
Hyperpicum Perforatum 3x HPUS - weakness in limbs; joint pain
Ruta Graveolens 3x HPUS - pain in limbs, joints & bones
Ledum Pal 3x HPUS - swelling; aches & pains; inflammation
Bellis Perennis 3x HPUS - muscular soreness; fatigue; sprains

Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Strips with Arnica

Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Strips with Arnica provide timely relief of muscle soreness, bruising and swelling due to overexertion or injury. Each strip contains Arnica, the first natural remedy for swelling, bruising and trauma and make a perfect complement to Hyland’s Muscle Therapy Gel. They provide natural, safe and effective pain relief. For more information about Arnica, visit www.arnica.com.

Key Benefits:

• Contains Arnica - the first natural remedy for swelling, brusing and trauma
• No Aspirin, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen or Naproxen
• Convenient and portable / Individually wrapped quick dissolving strips

Indications for Use: Temporarily relieves the symptoms of muscle pain, soreness, bruising and swelling due to injuries and over exertion.

Active Ingredients:

Anica Montana 30x HPUS - stiffness; pain; trauma; bruising
Hyperpicum Perforatum 6x HPUS - weakness in limbs; joint pain
Ruta Graveolens 6x HPUS - pain in limbs, joints & bones
Ledum Pal 6x HPUS - swelling; aches & pains; inflammation
Bellis Perennis 6x HPUS - muscular soreness; fatigue; sprainsets.

Buy Arnica Online

Here are two of our favorite sources for Arnica and Arnica products:

Buy Arnica at 1-800 Homeopathy

Arnica References in Literature & Movies

Tributes to Arnica in Hollywood and History

Goethe Sings Her Praises

“When life and death began their struggle within me, I sensed how the hosts of life, this flower on their standard, forced the issue, and the stagnating forces of the enemy, the deathly oppressive powers, meet their Austerlitz. Rejuvenated in my recovery I praise this herb most highly, yet in truth it is nature who praises herself, she who is truly inexhaustible, who creates this flower with its healing powers, and in doing so once more proclaims herself to be eternally procreative.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, on Arnica after it relieved his severe chest pains (due to a heart condition which eventually took his life). Goethe credited Arnica with saving his life so that he could write the second volume of his autobiography

Arnica at MGM

In the classic comedy Western McLintock, there’s a passage where, after character Devlin (played by John Wayne’s actual son Patrick Wayne) gets in a couple of fist fights, Wayne/McLintock says:

Jake, you think tincture of arnica would help?

Jake: Could be. Used to help you.

McLintock: Gentlemen, to the medicine chest

As we happen on more citings we will post them here, but please feel free to drop in any you’ve heard, seen or read about…

The Who, Why, When of Using Arnica

Anyone of any age, or in any state of wellness or sickness, strength or weakness. Among its generations of users, there is not a recorded case of bad side effects from using homeopathy’s safe doses of Arnica.

Below is a general description of Arnica, from 1-800-Homeopathy’s Single Remedy Catalogue. For more extensive descriptions, click on Materia medica listings on this website:

• First Aid - Bruising, bleeding, trauma, pain and swelling after injuries, blows, dental work, surgery,   childbirth, etc. Backache, joint & muscle pain from strain or exercise.

• Modalities - Better lying with head low. Worse touch, jarring, exertion.

General Description

This premier first aid remedy has brought many converts to homeopathy by minimizing bruising, bleeding, swelling, shock, pain and recovery time following strains, injuries, dental work, surgery, childbirth, exercise… Even without bruising or obvious signs of injury after trauma, Arnica relieves the aftershock, soreness and pain that follows.

Sprains:

Whenever backs are lifting and joints are twisting, Arnica can minimize the swelling, bruising and pain. In homeopath Asa Hershoff’s book on Musculoskeltal Healing, his perfect formula for sprains begins with Arnica to reduce swelling, bruising and trauma.

Broken bones:

Arnica given in the first stage can minimize the swelling and get you in the final cast much sooner. Once the bone is well set, low doses of Symphytum should take Arnica’s place.

Skin:

On the skin and soft tissues everywhere, Arnica can help the body reduce bruising, minimize bleeding of minor cuts, plus ease tender sore spots like boils, acne or blood blisters.

Muscles:

For aches and muscles, Arnica can bring much comfort when a strong cough has your ribcage feeling sore, or a flu has your muscles aching. A dose before and after a workout can minimize the next day’s stiffness and help the muscles heal.

Arnica is an excellent all-around remedy, but please remember to consult a licensed medical professional for serious injuries.

HPUS: Description of Arnica Montana

The HPUS is the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States

Homeopathic medicines are regulated by the FDA as drugs.  Legalization and standardization of homeopathy began in 1897. An ingredient is considered homeopathic when it meets the standards specified in the HPUS.  The HPUS is a ” a non-governmental, non-profit scientific organization composed of experts in the fields of medicine, arts, biology, botany, chemistry and pharmacy who have had appropriate training and experience and have demonstrated additional knowledge and interest in the principles of homeopathy.”

Homeopathic Parmacopoeia of the United States

The description of arnica montana in the HPUS is:

ARNICA MONTANA

Name in contemporary use: Arnica montana L

Synonyms:

Latin: Doronicum oppositifolium Lam., D. arnica Desf.

Eng: Mountain arnica, Leopard’s bane, Mountain tobacco

Fr: Arnique

Biological Classification:

Family Compositae (Composite Family)

Description:

A perennial herb, with a slender, blackish rhizome 2.5 to 5 cm. long, from which are given off numerous filiform roots. The stem, 25 to 30 cm high, is erect, pubescent, rough, striated, either simple or with one pair of opposite branches. The leaves, 4 to 8 cm. long, are few, entire, sessile, opposite, obovate; the radical ones crowded at the base, the upper smaller than the rest. The heads, 5 to 6.5 cm. wide, are large and solitary at the summit of the stem and lateral branches. The involucre is cylindrical, dull green, with purplish points and hairy. The disk flowers are yellow and numerous, with tubular corolla with five spreading teeth. The ray flowers are about fifteen in number, yellow in color. It flowers in July and August.

Range and habitat:
moist, grassy upland meadows in the hills and mountains of northern and central Europe and Siberia. It is also found sparsely in the northwestern United States.

Preparation & Classification:
Tincture of the entire plant, including the root (Class C). Alcohol content: 45% v/v

Medication:
OTC: 3X
Rx:1X
HPN:N/A

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