Your Complete Guide to Natural Remedies for Nerve Pain

Suffering from nerve pain? You’re not alone – 1 in 3 Americans experience chronic pain at some point in their lives, and of those, 1 in 5 experience nerve pain. Nerve pain is incredibly difficult to live with, and chronic pain needs to be managed effectively if you’re going to live a full and happy life.

Of course, there are many pharmaceutical solutions, but many of these are costly and come with a laundry list of side effects, so even if you’re on one that works well for you, you may want to try natural remedies for nerve pain to use instead of or as well as a prescription to help manage not only your physical pain, but the emotional and mental difficulties that come along with it.

In this complete guide, we’ll take you through the causes of nerve pain and the natural remedies to help you tackle your nerve pain.

Causes of Nerve Pain

Nerve pain is typically due to problems with the central nervous system, i.e. your brain and spinal cord, or the other nerves around your body that run from this central nervous system to your organs and muscles. The biggest problem posed by nerve pain is that the pain doesn’t have to be caused by an external stimulus, it can flare up at any time as the body sends pain signals to the brain without reason.

People can develop chronic neuropathic pain for a number of reasons, and these can largely be sorted into four categories: disease, injury, limb loss, or infection, though there are a few outliers.

Natural Remedies for Nerve Pain

Our natural instincts for relieving nerve pain are often to go to the doctor and ask for the strongest medication possible – anything to numb the pain. And while this may be a good solution in the moment, fighting back with man-made chemical substances is often not the healthiest thing for your body, and there is always the risk of developing a reliance, not to mention the negative side effects most medications have.

Therapies, such as physical, massage, and relaxation, can all be used to help alleviate symptoms of neuropathy in a much healthier way, and should be used whenever possible in tandem with natural remedies for nerve pain.

How you choose to manage your chronic pain is a entirely personal decision, but it’s well worth exploring physical therapies and natural remedies for nerve pain. Supplements like CBD, DMSO and Magnesium may be able to help manage nerve pain, let’s take a closer look at how.

CBD for Nerve Pain

Cannabis has been used for its medicinal benefits for thousands of years and is still used to this day. The most common reason for using medicinal cannabis is to combat the effects of chronic pain.

CBD, also known as cannabidiol, is an active ingredient found in plants in the cannabis family. While it can be found in marijuana, the majority of CBD products found on shelves around the country is extracted from the hemp plant, which contains very little THC, which is the psychoactive ingredient that gives you a high.

This means that CBD is completely safe to take and go about your normal day, such as driving, which you obviously cannot do on medical marijuana and even some forms of prescription pain medication.

CBD for Nerve Pain: How Does CBD Work?

Our body has an endocannabinoid system which was only discovered in the 1990s. It helps our body regulate essential functions such as sleep, appetite, mood, pain, and memory. There are two types of endocannabinoid receptors in the body called CB1 and CB2, which endocannabinoids, such as CBD, bind to, to send different signals around the body.

Our body naturally produces these endocannabinoids, but the endocannabinoids in the cannabis family of plant can mimic these, and help our body better regulate these functions.

CBD for Nerve Pain: How Does it Work to Reduce Pain?

Of course, the anecdotal evidence for CBD is outstanding – CBD has been embraced by people of all walks of life all over the world in recent years to help them manage pain, injury, and their mental health. Fortunately, there has also been significant scientific evidence, and this is increasing all the time.

A study from the European Journal of Pain demonstrated that CBD works towards relieving chronic pain. CBD was applied to the skin of rats with arthritis and they found that both pain and inflammation were reduced. As neuropathic pain and pain due to inflammation are the two types of chronic pain that are most difficult to treat, it can be seen that CBD is particularly beneficial.

CBD for Nerve Pain: Effective Against MS

CBD can also be used to help relieve the symptoms of MS, particularly muscle spasms. A study in a report by the National Academies Press found that using CBD even just short-term can help to reduce the severity of these muscle spasms.

CBD for Nerve Pain: Reduces Feelings of Anxiety & Depression

Of course, another reason why CBD grew in popularity is its ability to help people and animals manage feelings of anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems. For most, the biggest symptom of chronic pain is the emotional anguish and often depression that comes from having to live your life around your pain. There have already been many studies that support CBD as a treatment for anxiety and depression.

DMSO for Nerve Pain

If you’re looking for natural remedies for nerve pain, another remedy to consider is DMSO. DMSO, also known as Dimethyl sulfoxide, is in fact a natural solvent but is also an effective topical pain reliever. When used topically, it is rapidly absorbed by the skin and has been proven to relieve both neuropathy and pain from inflammation.

DMSO for Nerve Pain: How Does DMSO Work?

A study from Experimental Neurology found that when DMSO was applied directly to a sensory nerve it works to block the conduction of C fibers, the part of the nerve that responds to intense pain. When DMSO is continued to be applied it works to block fibers of all sizes, the smallest fibers, however, are those that respond to the most severe pain stimuli. As DMSO blocks these fibers, this severe pain is reduced.

These findings are backed up in a study from Neuroscience Letters, which showed that musculoskeletal pain was relieved when DMSO was applied directly to the skin around painful areas of the body. Once again, they found that C fiber conduction was slowed with low concentrations of DMSO, and entirely blocked with higher concentrations of DMSO.

Magnesium for Nerve Pain

Magnesium is an essential mineral within the body, and is used by the body to support a huge number of functions, including maintaining proper nerve and muscle function. Magnesium deficiency can lead to conditions such as sciatica pain, inflammation, Restless Leg Syndrome, cramps, insomnia, and depression, among others.

The Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy has said that magnesium can help especially with neuropathy caused by chemotherapy, and a study from the University of Adelaide demonstrates how magnesium treatment has had beneficial effects on patients with neuropathy, including postherpetic neuralgia, malignancy-related symptoms, chemotherapy-related neuropathy, and diabetic neuropathy.

Magnesium is a great supplement to take no matter what other natural or pharmaceutical remedies and medications you take, because it’s something that we should be aiming to consume enough of through our diet to support our overall health and wellness.

If you struggle with nerve pain that prevents you from living a full, happy life, adding CBD, DMSO, and Magnesium into your life may help to relieve your pain and other symptoms without the need for reliance on pain medication.

Pain Warrior+ provides natural pain relief in the form of a CBD infused DMSO cream. Combined with magnesium, this is a great product to help relieve nerve pain and muscle spasms, as well as the added benefits of CBD such as assisting with stress and anxiety and aiding sleep. To see our full range of natural remedies for nerve pain, click here.