Comprehensive (or integrative) medicine combines the best of holistic and pharmaceutical treatments to create a therapy plan. The wonderful thing it is that it gives you a full tool kit to deal with your problems.

Many natural therapies can be very helpful for pain. My three favorite pain-relieving herbals are willow bark, Boswellia, and cherry.

While going after and eliminating the underlying causes of the pain, it is also perfectly reasonable to use pain medications for temporary relief.

The toxicity of chronic pain is far greater than the toxicity of these medications. The main problem is that these medications can cause side effects, especially when started at high dose.

It is reasonable to start with a higher dose if needed to get pain free quickly, but if the side effects become problematic, immediately lower the dose to the level that is comfortable (even if this is simply one-half tablet daily at bedtime).

As your body adapts to the side effects over a week or two, the dose can then be raised. Starting at too high a dose, without stopping and retrying at a lower dose in the face of side effects, is the major reason why people do not tolerate medications for pain that otherwise would be very helpful.