RACE to Health Naturally from Injuries

With summer upon us and our kids in sports and our life style being more active, it is not uncommon to have various injuries related to our active life style. When we suffer from injuries during sports, accidents, or trauma, the best care is RACE. By using rest(R), Arnica (A), gentle compression (C), and elevation (E) followed by judicious reuse and retraining of the injured part, our body’s natural healing effort is assisted. Instead of using RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation), as a homeopathic practitioner, dedicated to assisting nature in her healing ways, I recommend that we remove the I (for ice) and replace an A (for Arnica). So with the addition of Arnica, we RACE to health naturally from injuries.

Arnica, the wondrous homeopathic remedy from plant family Compositae, works in accordance with the body’s defense mechanism. Arnica is used for healing during the first stage of injuries. Arnica helps when an injury is worse from any motion, sensitive to touch, and worse from exertion. It helps stabilize bruised or injured tissues and stops bleeding within the wound. Arnica can be used for all injuries of the “soft parts” that are closed injuries where the skin is intact, not lacerated, not cut and not open.

- Arnica is a treasure in situations where there is bruising of muscles whether from boxing, wrestling, mountain climbing, falls or whatever. 

- Concussion, contusions, falls and injuries to any part of the body are relieved quickly with use of Arnica. 

- Pain due to mental and/or physical shock is relieved rapidly by Arnica. Especially when the injured person is claiming everything is fine and refuses to go to a doctor for treatment. 

- Dental extraction (E.g. wisdom teeth removals, root canals or where you have been sitting in the dental chair with jaw open and feeling sore and bruised mouth),sprains (includes ankle sprains), twisting and turning of joints due to overexertion or falls, fractured bones internal administration of Arnica provides good results.

- Many women have regained quickly from hemorrhage and strain of birthingprocess by few doses of Arnica during and after delivery. Thus it is a common practice in Homeopathic practice to give Arnica to a mother and baby after birth of the baby.

- Michael Quinn of Hahnemann pharmacy patented Arnica as SinEcch to reduce swelling and speed up recovery after cosmetic surgeries. He has documented many cases of successful use of Arnica post operatively in plastic surgeries. 

Arnica can be applied locally to the injured part two or three times a day using a variety of easily available liniments, creams or ointments (but never apply it to skin that is broken or lacerated). A dose Arnica 30C (3 round pellets of standard size 35 sold at co-op) may also be taken by mouth for the first one to four days every 6 hours to speed healing where further assistance is necessary. As improvement occurs, doses can be decreased and then stopped. Most health food stores such as Just Food Co Op in Northfield carry homeopathic remedies.