1.  Certain medications affect the endocrine system.  This is why I suggest http://TooPoopedToParticipate.com Bette is an exceptional expert about who knows about boosting your endocrine system. Endocrine systems get damaged and unhappy when we put certain things (including certain food ingredients and medications) into our bodies.  We need our thyroid and all of the other endocrine glands to be healthy and function well so that WE can be healthy and function well, too.

I bought Bette’s book at http://PepForThePooped.com which has all of her info in it.  Sign up and Bette will send you a free chapter.  But if you go to the first link, she sends out free newsletters which are very informative and also does free teleseminars and responds to questions.

2.  Minerals bind with toxins in our bodies and then we flush them out through the normal route–the kidneys and bladder. Taking a very good vitamin/mineral supplement and/or a good liquid mineral supplement will supply your body with minerals to replace and bind with the residue from the medication.

You can find a good multivitamin-mineral and also liquid minerals at a health food store.  If you go to one with a knowledgeable staff, they will help guide you.  You can also find detox products there but I don’t have any personal knowledge about them.  The staff could help you more.

There are also some doctors who can do a detox procedure by infusing minerals into your blood.  That may be quicker than taking a good multi and minerals, but no doubt costs more.

It may take several months before you get the residue out of your system and feel really peak again.  About 7 months after I first started taking liquid minerals I noticed several major health differences in my own body.

The minerals I take are from New Vision in Utah.  They are an MLM company but I’m not affiliated with them.  I just buy from them.  I like the taste and they’re easy on the stomach.  This is the brand that made such a big difference for me.  Just take tiny doses if you get minerals from a health food store and be sure to dilute them to avoid a temporary “heavy” feeling in your tummy.

You can find the vitamins I take by scrolling down the right side bar here at Simple Pain Relief.  I take the Omega Plus and the daily multi from the same company and sometimes I mix it up with other brands, too.

4.  Drink lots of pure or filtered water to help flush the drug out. Plastic water bottles aren’t the best.  They have toxins, too.

5.  Massage can be helpful as it moves metabolic wastes and toxins from the tissues to be flushed from the body.  Have general relaxation massage that is deep enough to move the soft tissue and muscle.

6.  Support your body with lots of fruits and vegetables and, if you can, organic meat and eggs.  They will supply you with lots of minerals, too, to help you recover.  Muscles have nutritional needs.  If you don’t give your muscles what they need, muscle pain can result.

If I wanted to do a detox program these are all steps I would take.  In fact, even if you are not detoxing, these steps will help you have happier muscles and muscle pain relief.

People (including professional massage therapists) often massage the rhomboid area trying to release the knot or pain there.  If it doesn’t release (relax) the knot or pain, that means the cause is somewhere else.

Let’s pretend your back pain is a dragon.  Sometimes “surrounding the dragon” will relieve the pain.  The “dragon” is the painful area.  If you pinch, roll, press or massage the latissimus or “lat” muscles on the outer sides of the back, that may help because they may be pulling on the “dragon.”  The dragon cannot relax and go to sleep while those muscles continue to pull on him.

And, there can be other causes for knots and pain between the shoulder blade and spine.

There is a muscle in the neck that causes pain in the rhomboid area. When nothing else works, that is the place to go to. If you go to http://CarpalTunnelPainReliefNow.com and look in the Video Category you will find a video that shows a massage professional treating that neck muscle. Also if you look in the Causes Category while you are there, you will find articles about the “muscle in your neck.”

If you go to http://SimpleStrengthening.com you will find articles about how to simply get strong back side muscles which will help prevent future occurrences by correcting your posture. Also, stretches to open and relax the muscles in the front of your chest and arms will help, too.

And, if you go to http://KnotsInYourBack.com you can claim a free report about how to get rid of the miserable knots in your back.

Rolling your shoulders is one way to get your shoulder muscles back into balance. It help them get “un-stuck.” What do I mean by “rolling”? Just watch the little video below.

I demonstrate how easily you can start making circles with your arms–2 different moves–that will help the muscles all around your shoulder. This gets the circulation going. It gets your muscles cooperating again. It will help relax your back and “massage” your arms.

Pay attention to the feelings in your shoulders, upper body and arms as you do these movements. Don’t worry if you hear a little “clunking.” That just means there is some imbalance. You may notice that it becomes less over time as your muscles get used to working together again.

If it’s very difficult to do these movements, then only do them to the best of your ability and comfort level until your shoulder muscles and joints become used to moving again. And remember: It’s your body and you always have to make the decision about what’s best for you.

Here’s the video.

You have a smart body and it wants to be well.  In order for that to happen, you must provide everything it needs.  Some of its needs are small–like vitamins and minerals are–but so, so necessary for your muscles (and brain) to function well.

Many vitamins and minerals interact–they work together.  If you are lacking enough magnesium, for instance, that will prevent you from absorbing enough calcium.  A magnesium deficiency will cause a calcium deficiency.

According to Travell & Simons, MD’s, you need iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium for normal muscle function.  The B-complex vitamins are all important, as is Vitamin D3.  You can get more vitamins and minerals by selecting healthier foods or by supplementing with a good multi-vitamin and mineral tablet.

Smoking, eating a diet with a lot of heavily processed and artificial foods, heavy alcohol use, sweets and table salt (sodium chloride) can all lead to deficiencies.  If you’re not changing your eating or social habits, consider taking a really potent supplement to help meet your bodies’ nutritional needs.  Also, sea salt (probably especially Himalayan sea salt) has minerals that regular table salt lacks.

As always, I remind you that I’m not a doctor, not a dietitian, not a nutritionist.  I’m The Pain Relief Coach and I’m sharing information today to help you get rid of your muscle pain.

As you grew you stopped using all of your muscles and that was the start of aches, pain and dysfunction.

Here’s a guest post from my friend Gini Maddocks of HolisticMatters.com.  She’ll explain why “break” dancing will help you get rid of your muscle aches and pains:

Do you take breaks during your busy day?

You should.

Research shows that the human brain is more efficient when allowed to rest in intervals.

Try this:
Turn on upbeat, familiar music–the kind you like to dance to.

Now let yourself relax into the groove, changing your focus to let your self MOVE.

It doesn’t have to be much to release tension through movement:  a little swaying… some foot tapping… nod your head, jiggle to the beat or close the door to rock and roll.

Studies reveal that even “imagining movement” offers good benefit via your nervous system.  So, close your eyes and give it a try.

Break dancing, the new rage in wellness!

That’s so cute–”break” dancing.  Gini has a way with words!  Take her advice to heart.  When you start to move again and get back into your “groove” you will start to have fewer aches and pains.

Now don’t just jump into exercising all at once.  If it’s been a while your muscles will need to adjust so start gradually.  But start.  Even if it’s break dancing.

You have a smart body and if you have muscle pain that means your body is complaining and wants a little (or a lot) of help from you.  You can relieve your muscle pain.

Here’s an example: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is very often caused by trigger points in your muscles.  The trigger points in this case are in the neck, upper chest, front of the arm and lower arm.  They “fire,” or refer, pain into the area of the carpal tunnel in the wrist.

A “syndrome” is a collection of symptoms.  Symptoms are things like pain, numbness, tingling.  If you can get rid of the symptoms, or the causes (triggers) of the symptoms, you get rid of the syndrome, too.

Trigger points are hyper-irritable (very irritated or crabby) areas of muscle.  Trigger points can also be found in other soft tissues like skin and organs.  Soft tissues are everything except our bones.

What do trigger points do?  They cause pain and symptoms in other parts of the body, sometimes at a far distance from the trigger point.  This is called “referred” pain.

We ALL have the potential to have them, because we all have soft tissues.

When a nagging pain or symptom won’t go away with treatment, that most likely means that a trigger point is causing the pain and needs to be released. Whatever caused the trigger point also needs to be corrected.  Everything has a cause!

When I was making my notes for a recent Carpal Tunnel Radio show, I noticed a relationship between Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and trigger points:  All of the things that cause trigger points also cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!  And, so it is with a lot of our body pain.

A great deal of our pain and other uncomfortable symptoms are caused by trigger points.  Trigger points and muscles are largely overlooked by the medical community (your doctor) as a cause of pain.  It’s just not widely taught in medical schools.  In fact, very few doctors understand the roles of muscles in pain syndromes and fewer still understand trigger points.

Here are some of the things that cause (create) trigger points:

* abnormal bone structure that you may have been born with (like a leg or arm length difference or a partially formed spinal bone)
* posture that causes muscle stress (poor or collapsed posture is a very common cause)
* doing repetitive motions, especially doing them incorrectly
* vitamin & mineral deficiencies or incorrect levels of needed nutrients
* thyroid or certain blood disorders
* stress; allergies and chronic infections

How are trigger points treated?  A manual or massage therapist can release trigger points naturally by locating them, pressing into them AND releasing the surrounding muscles that caused them in the first place.  A few doctors use a “spray and stretch” method or injections to release the trigger points.  Sometimes the injections help, sometimes not.  Depends on the knowledge and ability of the doctor.

There is a very good book on self-treating trigger points.  You can learn about it here.  You can release many of your own trigger points when you understand where they are and how to get to them.

And, there are trigger point charts that show the areas they distribute pain to.  A good manual therapist or massage therapist will know by your symptoms where your trigger points are and will be able to release them.  A good therapist will also help you get rid of the cause of the trigger points.

No more trigger points equals no more muscle pain!

And, we need organic farmers, too.  Chemical companies are poisoning us and our children.

This bill, HR 875, will prevent organic farmers from doing what they need to do to get organic food to us.

I hope you can take the time to read, and please pass this along.  If you have never written to your legislator before, this would be such a good time to start.  Below is my letter to my legislator.  Below that, is his response to my previous email to him.

Re: Organic Seed Harvesting & Use HR 875

Monday, April 20, 2009 11:21 PM
From:
“Kathryn Merrow”

To:
“Congressman John D. Dingell” <mi15hima.pub@mail.house.gov>

Dear Congressman Dingell,

I have been puzzling over your response to my email.

I believe it is in the best interests of ALL Americans that organic farmers be able to harvest and use their own organic seeds.

How else will we, Americans, be able to get organic produce?

Why are you willing to put the growing business of organic farms out of business?

Of course!  That’s it, isn’t it!

If organic farmers are not able (I didn’t say “allowed” because THIS IS AMERICA!)  to harvest and use their own organic seeds, then they will be forced to buy genetically modified and otherwise polluted and altered seed if they are able to stay in business at all.

And, who would benefit from that?

The American People?  Of course not.

But the chemical manufacturers would.  The people who will make more money from altering our natural sources of food would.

Have you wondered why the fruit that tasted so wonderful when you were a child tastes rather plain now?  It is more beautiful than ever.  Almost looks like plastic, it’s so perfect.  Almost tastes like plastic.  Getting real close to almost BEING plastic.

I realize that you are getting up in years now and may no longer be concerned about your own health, but what about your grandchildren and their children?  What about their health and their choices to eat healthy, organic foods and produce?

What about all of the children–AMERICAN children–who are getting sick.  Children are getting more and more sick and the cause is the garbage they are forced to eat.

Chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, and altered genes are allowed to be placed into the things in our markets that people eat.  THIS is what you, as a representative of the American People should be protecting us from.

These food “additives” are causing obesity, autism, migraines in children who are only 6 years old, and more illnesses.

Please!  Protect us from the Chemical Giants not from the organic farmers.

Who benefits our health the most?

The answer is obvious:  It’s not Monsanto or other big agricultural companies, it’s Joe the Organic Farmer.

One more thing, Sir.

The first part of your response to my last missive talked about the problems with the recent peanut butter contamination.

Because???  I’m sure that processes were already in place to provide safety in processed foods.  If those processes failed, that has nothing to do with organic farmers.

Big companies generally want to squash little companies so they can make more money.  That’s what’s behind this addition to the bill.

Organic produce is becoming a bigger opponent of “better living through chemistry” now, because more and more people want to have better health.  More and more Americans seek out organic foods.  We want to have better health and a longer, healthier life.

When big business notices little companies becoming popular, what do they do?  They try to get rid of them so they can get the money that is going to the little companies.

Don’t let the guy with the big money win this one.  He doesn’t care about our health.  He doesn’t put love into his produce.

Unfortunately, politics is so…political.

Sincerely hoping you will remove this offensive portion of this bill,

Kathryn Merrow

— On Wed, 4/8/09, Congressman John D. Dingell <mi15hima.pub@mail.house.gov> wrote:

> From: Congressman John D. Dingell <mi15hima.pub@mail.house.gov>
>
> Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009, 4:09 PM
> April 8, 2009
>
> Kathryn Merrow

> Dear Kathryn:

>            Thank you for contacting me in regard to H.R.
> 875, the Food
> Safety Modernization Act of 2009.  I appreciate hearing
> from you.
>
> Recently, eight people were killed and over 500 people
> across the
> country fell ill with salmonella after eating contaminated
> peanut
> butter. As if that were not enough, federal officials found
> that the
> peanut plant that produced the peanut butter knowingly
> shipped out
> contaminated goods 12 times in the past two years. The
> Peanut
> Corporation of America found salmonella in internal tests
> between 2007
> and 2008, but sold their products anyway.
>
>                As you may know, Representative Rosa DeLauro
> (D-CT)
> introduced H.R. 875 on February 4, 2009. This bill proposes
> the creation
> of a Food Safety Administration within the Department of
> Health and
> Human Services and directs the administrator implement a
> national food
> safety program to ensure that persons who produce, process,
> or
> distribute food prevent or minimize food safety hazards.
> The
> legislation was referred to the House Committee on Energy
> and Commerce,
> of which I am Chairman Emeritus.
>
> I understand the importance of protecting consumer freedom.
>  You may be
> interested to learn that I, along with Representatives
> Frank Pallone
> (D-NJ) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) introduced H.R. 759, the Food
> and Drug
> Administration Globalization Act, on January 28, 2009. This
> legislation
> is a critical step toward equipping the FDA with the
> authorities and
> funding it needs to regulate what is now a global
> marketplace for food,
> drugs, devices, and cosmetics.
>
> The Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act would
> guarantee FDA
> the funding needed to significantly increase inspections of
> food
> facilities and improve outdated information systems. The
> legislation
> requires food producers to have preventive food safety
> plans in place
> and subjects the plans to FDA inspection, requires food
> imports to meet
> all US standards, closes the loopholes in FDA’s ability
> to trace the
> source of contaminated products, and imposes stiff
> penalties on
> companies that violate safety standards.
>
> Additionally, this bill requires parity between foreign and
> domestic
> drug and device facility inspections, increases the number
> of
> pre-approval drug inspections, prohibits the entry of drugs
> into the
> United States lacking documentation of safety, requires
> manufacturers to
> ensure the safety of their supply chain, and grants FDA
> authority to
> mandate recalls of unsafe drugs. The bill also creates a
> dedicated
> foreign inspectorate to increase FDA’s ability to
> monitor foreign
> facilities producing food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics.
> Please rest
> assured I will keep your comments in mind as these pieces
> of legislation
> move forward.
>
>            Again, thank you for being in touch.  For news
> on current
> federal legislative issues, please visit my website at
> www.house.gov/dingell <http://www.house.gov/dingell>
> ; you can also sign
> up there to receive my e-newsletter.  In the meantime,
> please do not
> hesitate to contact me again if I may be of assistance with
> this or any
> other matter of concern.
>
>            With every good wish,
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> John D. Dingell
>
> Member of Congress