About 12 months ago now I met someone I am now happy to call my good friend and only recently, my patient. Sadly, this friend of mine suffers from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and as the name suggests, this is almighty complex and very convoluted in nature, hence why I wasn’t sure I could take this case on personally. ⠀
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This patient was prescribed the following by her doctor to manage her daily pain: ⠀
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Targin 10mg 1-2x daily⠀
Gabapentin 300mg 6-9x daily ⠀
Endone 5mg 2 x daily⠀
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My patients main goal was to try and reduce the amount of prescriptive pain medications needed over time as the list of side effects she was experiencing was getting longer and longer.⠀
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Just by adding in a highly bio available form of PEA other wise known as palmitoylethanolamide to her daily regime we have been able to pretty much, *with exception of some nights depending on her daily activity levels, stop the intake of Gabapentin completely. ⠀
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Now, we do have a long way to go in terms of lifestyle modifications, dietary measures, herbs, nutrients and other therapies before we can further reduce the other medications, although I am very very pleased with the results, so I wanted to share with you some more information on PEA. ⠀
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Chronic inflammation influences endogenous levels of PEA, suppressing synthesis and elevating degradation, and low PEA levels hinder the resolution of inflammation. Further, an inverse relationship exists between PEA levels in the CNS and pain threshold. Thus, PEA supplementation may be therapeutically beneficial in chronic pain and inflammatory conditions. (Metagenics Institute)⠀
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ACTIONS OF PEA ⠀
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* Endocannabinoid system modulation⠀
* Analgesic⠀
* Anti-inflammatory⠀
* Neuroprotective⠀
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CAUTIONS: It is important to never self prescribe supplements without the guidance of a practitioner. PEA exerts an analgesic effect. Use of PEA alongside analgesics may theoretically lead to an additive or synergistic analgesic effect. When taken alongside prescription pharmaceutical analgesics, PEA has been shown to exert an additive analgesic effect in human studies.
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