John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

Painkillers have a lot to answer for. The ability to get fast pain relief has to some degree caused an expectation that health problems can be resolved rapidly. The reality is that while pain may respond quickly to medication, most chronic health problems need time.

Years ago, I used to suffer from painful night cramps. Not a big deal, but it is not nice to be woken with your calf muscle cramping in the middle of a pleasant dream. It took more than six months of antioxidant and mineral therapy to completely stop this cramping. It takes time for blood vessels to regain their elasticity to allow effective blood flow to the individual muscle fibres that make up ones calf muscle.

It has been said that people overestimate what can be achieved in the short term, but underestimate what can be achieved in the long term. When I give people advice on micro-nutritional therapy I always reinforce the importance of time.

My comment is to consider any short term benefit as a bonus. What I am looking for are slow changes, building over months and years. My preference is to work in three month time blocks with a monthly review. This is especially true when working with people who have had long term health problems.

We need to understand the differences between symptom relief from medication and the slow restoration from your own healing processes.

As an example, let's say someone has a joint affected by inflammation. The standard medical therapy would be a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug such as diclofenac. These work by chemically blocking enzymes that are responsible for creating inflammatory prostaglandins (PG2). These cause the redness, swelling, heat and pain associated with inflammation.

The body also has specialised immune system processes that can switch off these same enzymes. If given the right nutrients, your body can not only turn off these enzymes, it can create anti-inflammatory prostaglandins (PG3) that positively shut down inflammation. These PG3s are the reverse of PG2s. They turn down inflammation by restoring normal blood supply and other anti-inflammatory actions.

Anti-inflammatory medications used properly are of course very useful, but it makes no sense to rely on these without also activating your body's potent anti-inflammatory systems. If you have health problems you should of course get medical advice, but do not ignore the twin benefits of time and maximising your body's healing processes.

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health.
If you have questions contact John phone 0800 423 559 or visit www.johnarts.co.nz