It Worked For Me

In desperation I tried nettles tonight for chronic joint pain and it really, really worked! I over-did today cooking outside and cleaning the yard. I could hardly move by 10:00 at night. I swatted myself with the nettles and the relief was almost immediate! The nettles hurt but the pain turns to more of a tingling, warm feeling after about 20 minutes. This is not for the faint of heart I did it in desperation and it amazed me how quickly I felt better. I got into some nettles by accident tonight putting the sheep in their pen. I was wearing shorts and my ankle got slapped by a nettle plant and starting smarting like crazy but then my back starting feeling better. Then I remembered reading about the power of stinging nettles so I gave it a try. I pulled off my shirt and used them on my shoulder and back. It's a weird thing but I will do it again for sure. If you try this be sure you really are in pain because its kinda wild. Now that its died down some from when I did it the feeling is sort of like when you put allot of muscle liniment on. It's not exactly comfortable but its not horrible either. The amazing thing is most of my severe back pain and shoulder pain is gone. I think I got the nerve to do this because I saw it in the BBC! Here is some stuff I found on line besides the BBC piece I posted below.

Stinging nettle is a dioecious herbaceous perennial, 1 to 2 m (3 to 7 ft) tall in the summer and dying down to the ground in winter. It has widely spreading rhizomes and stolons, and these, like the roots, are bright yellow. The soft green leaves are 3 to 15 cm (1 to 6 in) long and are borne oppositely on an erect wiry green stem. The leaves have a strongly serrated margin, a cordate base and an acuminate tip with a terminal leaf tooth longer than adjacent laterals. It bears small greenish or brownish 4-merous flowers in dense axillary inflorescences. The leaves and stems are very hairy with non-stinging hairs and also bear many stinging hairs (trichomes), whose tips come off when touched, transforming the hair into a needle that will inject several chemicals: acetylcholine, histamine, 5-HT or serotonin, and possibly formic acid. This mixture of chemical compounds cause a sting or paresthesia from which the species derives its common name, as well as the colloquial names burn nettle, burn weed, burn hazel. This sting can last from only a few minutes to as long as a week.

Stinging Nettles have been used for thousands of years!

Nature provides us with many plants that will aid in the relieving of joint pain. The most radical and perhaps the most daunting is Stinging Nettles. It is called urtication - from nettles botanical name, Utrica dioica- and dates back to the biblical times. Quiet simply the plant is grasped in a gloved hand and the stiff, swollen joint is swatted, thrashed with the sting. Urtication often provides considerable relief. The tiny stingers of the nettle plant actually provide microinjections of several chemicals, one of which is histamine.

The theory is, these chemicals, as well as causing the sting, trigger anti-inflammatory action by the body and so relieve arthritis. This is an ancient folklore, that seems to work for many people all over the world. Nettles grow in may countries and in each stinging nettles has developed a reputation as a treatment for arthritis.

Check it out a whole book on using Stinging Nettles for medicine!

http://books.google.com/books?id=AoWtF1ruQJsC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=Dr+Colin+Randall+stinging+nettles&source=bl&ots=UZemw1YfEH&sig=sJNVe435jib96Yj2XxAV6Z4H23k&hl=en&ei=08d3SpDxM5eEtge9x-yWCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false