Family Recipe Friday - Arthritis Pain Reliever

Okay, so I am a sucker for any remedy that says “all natural”. And especially those that say “from within your kitchen cupboards”.

As a nurse, I’ve used sugar and honey for many ailments and received wonderful results. But that was under the care of some “old-timey” doctors, who really didn’t care if modern medicine had something new and on the cutting edge to help their elderly patients, they simply used what they knew worked best.

Recently I was re-awakened, after nearly 20-years retired from the medical profession, to a very old pain remedy. Not as a professional any longer, but for myself, as the patient in constant pain.

I have degenerative bone disease, along with chronic fibromyalgia. Daily I am in pain. At times debilitating pain. Some days I could walk with a slight limp, others I lean heavily on a cane for support. Still others… I lay in the bed in tears.

When I recently read, from one of those crazy little emails we all get, about utilizing honey and cinnamon for arthritis pain, as well as to help in weight loss, I figured what the heck! I’ve tried everything else, why not this? I really didn’t expect much of anything to happen. I really didn’t.

First thing in the morning, and last thing at night, I have been drinking a cup of “tea”. This tea is simply hot water with 2-tablespoons raw honey, and 1-tablespoon ground cinnamon. That’s it.

For the first 10-days I noticed nothing different. But decided to continue. What could it harm?

When week 2 came around, I noticed I could pick up an object fallen on the floor, without extreme pain, or calling out to DH to pick it up for me!

At week 3, my extreme right knee pain was gone. I’m not sure when it left, I simply know I went to bed with it aching, and awoke without pain!

Getting out of bed was no longer a chore in the morning! No extreme crippling back pain that meant two or more hours trying to limber up!

Wiping up spills on the floor no longer meant dropping a wad of paper towels on the floor and using my foot to push it around and hope I got most of it cleaned up. I could suddenly bend over from the waist, bend my knees and even kneel [!] to clean a spill up!

And…. As if the pain relief wasn’t enough, simply by not eating in between meals, my weight has plummeted with an amazing 53 pound loss in two-months! Yes, you read that correctly! 53 pounds! I’ve lost 4 dress sizes!!!

All because of this amazing 2-tablespoons of raw honey and 1-tablespoon of ground cinnamon taken in hot water twice daily.

I won’t deny that it can be nasty when you get to the bottom of the cup and try to get past the “dregs” of the cinnamon, to drink! But I simply take that last bit in as big a gulp as I can handle to get it all down.  And besides, I’d drink just about anything to get the kind of pain relief I have been given! All without use of anything pharmaceutical! No prescription. Nothing over the counter.

I’m not about to say that this will work for everyone. And I won’t deny that there might be a bit of psychological makeup that allows this to happen. But I am saying that it has worked for me. Even when prescription medication didn’t touch my pain.

Sometimes, Mother Nature makes the best doctor after all. And I, for one, am going to continue to follow her prescription.