VWB Blog Picture this: You’re helping a friend move into their new place, lifting boxes and furniture all day. You’re fine the day of, but when you wake up the next morning, your lower back and arms hurt like crazy. Whether you twisted something from all that heavy lifting or just slept on it wrong, your back aches, and it isn’t likely to stop any time soon.
So, aside from taking two aspirin and waiting it out, what can you do for the pain? Applying lotion to the affected site may provide you with the necessary relief. Here are 7 lotions for pain that you need to try the next time you deal with morning aches.
1. Chill Out With Cold Therapy Creams
Both cold and heat can prove useful for treating your aches and pains. However, if you’re dealing with an acute injury, it’s best to chill out and apply some cold therapy creams to the site of the pain.
These creams often contain proprietary blends of medicines or other chemical agents to dig deep into the skin and soothe your pain. But did you know that many of these creams have peppermint or menthol oil in them? This is what gives them their cooling, tingling effect.
2. Get Spicy With Capsaicin
Capsaicin is another common ingredient in many lotions for pain and should be on the list for the ones you get in stores. Not sure what capsaicin is? Simply put, if you’ve ever eaten a seeded hot pepper, you’ve experienced what capsaicin feels like on the inside of your mouth.
Capsaicin is the substance within peppers that makes them spicy. It also provides a warming effect to the skin, nerves, and muscles, increasing blood flow and helping to relieve your pain.
3. Consider CBD Lotion for Pain
If you want something a bit stronger, but don’t want to use an outright medicated cream, you can always invest in CBD lotion for pain. CBD, one of the key substances in cannabis, has shown an incredible ability to soothe both the body and the mind. This makes topical cbd lotion a must-have for people with both chronic pain and anxiety.
If you’re worried that CBD lotion might cause you to fail a drug test, don’t be. The concentration of THC is too low to cause a false positive. If, on the other hand, you’re using outright cannabis lotion for back pain, you might have something to feel concerned about.
4. Don’t Get Salty: Use Epsom Salt Lotion for Pain
Epsom salts are one of the Swiss Army Knives of the home health fanatic. They can be used to exfoliate your skin, clean your washing machine, grout your tiles, and yes, even reduce stress and inflammation.
Due to its strong anti-inflammatory properties, Epsom salt lotion for pain can work wonders for your aches. The reason why it’s so effective is unclear. Although, some scientists suspect that it might be due to the high magnesium content in the salts themselves.
5. Oils Are Essential for DIY Pain Lotions
What if you don’t have the time, money, or desire to run to the store and buy a dedicated pain lotion? If you have essential oils around the house, you’re in luck, as many of these oils turn up on the ingredients lists for commercial pain lotions.
Don’t believe us? Some of the best essential oils that can alleviate your pain include:
- Peppermint oil, which gets used in cooling creams and gels
- Marjoram oil, which can alleviate spasms as well as pain
- Ginger oil, which has a warming effect similar to capsaicin
- Eucalyptus oil, which is well-known for its relaxing effects
If you happen to have any of these lying around your home, don’t hesitate to mix them with a little shea butter or coconut oil to make a homemade lotion. It might not be as effective as a store-made one, but it can give you a few pain-free hours in a pinch.
6. Get Comfy With Comfrey
Do you need serious pain relief, but don’t want to go straight for the analgesic creams? Are you someone who values using natural or organic products, but don’t have access to CBD or hemp lotion for pain? If so, then a comfrey-based lotion might be the perfect solution for you.
Comfrey has been around for millennia. It’s been used in traditional Asian medicine, especially Japanese medicine, for over 2000 years. While it may have negative effects on your liver and could prove carcinogenic, this herbal remedy has stood the test of time for a reason: It works.
Comfrey lotions work well for inflammatory conditions. So, chronic issues like arthritis and gout respond best to this ingredient.
7. Medicated Topical Creams Can Help
As much as you may want to go au naturale to avoid the harsher ingredients and their potential interactions, sometimes, you need medicated lotions for pain to get the job done. No one particularly likes the smell of lidocaine-based or analgesic creams, but they are effective at getting rid of the pain fast.
They also tend to work better than many other options on acute injuries, which can get you back to your regular life sooner. Before you apply one of these topical creams, make sure to check the ingredients list. The last thing you need is for one of the medications in the cream to clash with another medication you’re already taking.
Creams and Lotions for Pain Aren’t Your Only Option
Applying lotions for pain can be a great short-term solution if you need something you can use and move on. However, they aren’t your only or even your best method for dealing with pain.
If you’re looking for more pain management solutions to suit your busy lifestyle, then check out the Health section of our blog. We update each day with more helpful and informative content like this.