Can Conventional Chinese language Medication Treatment Our Opioid Disaster?

The opioid epidemic is among the most deadly and urgent well being points in America proper now. Deaths from opioid overdose now surpass 80,000 yearly. That’s greater than the variety of deaths because of colon and breast cancers mixed! Positive, a lot of the issue rests within the streets the place fentanyl runs rampant. However notice too that 88% of opioid abuse (not deaths) outcomes from legally prescribed drugs. So, it’s incumbent on medical suppliers to hunt various approaches to treating ache. To be truthful, medical suppliers have certainly responded to the issue and have vastly curtailed the quantity of opioid-based prescriptions. However with out changing opioids with an equal various, this leaves extra ache in want of therapy, which represents an unsavory Catch-22 situation. As a surgeon who consistently manages postoperative ache, I made a decision to take the opioid bull by the horns and sought methods to interchange opioids with non-addictive alternate options. Given my Japanese drugs bent, I first turned to see what centuries-old conventional Chinese language drugs needed to supply.

An Opioid-Beater

As a lecturer at Yosan College Faculty of Conventional Chinese language Medication, I recruited a crew to assist develop an opiate-beating medicine that I may use after surgical procedures to cut back or remove opioids. Inspiring me into this ache capsule pivot was a surgeon-colleague, Dr Shirin Towfigh, who was providing her hernia-surgery sufferers a posh natural combination after procedures which diminished their want for opioids.

Mom of a Examine

With the assistance of Kristal Hart, a doctoral candidate at Yosan, we designed the mother-of-all-studies in Western drugs: A randomized, potential, double-blind examine that assessed whether or not a 6-component conventional Chinese language drugs may scale back conventional ache capsule use after surgical procedures like vasectomies and vasectomy reversals (me) and hernia repairs (Dr. Towfigh). Uniquely, nobody had ever used a mix of herbals (that may have synergy and do higher than single brokers alone) and nobody had ever performed a randomized trial.

A Biblical Treatment

We recruited over 100 variety souls who have been having surgical procedure to take our conventional Chinese language drugs (TCM) tablets (or placebo) for 3 days earlier than their procedures and for five days afterwards. They have been additionally provided routine opioids and different conventional Western ache tablets and have been free to take them as wanted. What we discovered was that the cohort taking the TCM tablets had charges of postoperative ache discount 4 occasions larger in magnitude and three occasions sooner than these utilizing conventional western ache tablets alone. And besides, the TCM cohort reported larger sleep high quality than the controls, which is a matter recognized to be affected by opioid use.

So, what precisely is on this magical pain-relieving elixir? The 2 prime elements are…await it…frankincense (Boswellia) and myrrh (Commiphora), two tree sap resins from Africa. It’s possible you’ll recall that in biblical occasions the Magi or clever males who attended the start of Jesus introduced these as items for the primary Christmas. Why convey these specific herbals? Properly perhaps these clever males knew one thing that we’re simply determining immediately: efficient non-prescription, non-opioid ache reduction after childbirth!