Pain and IPT

Pain is the body's signal to the brain that something is wrong. Pain occurs in many different diseases (cancer, arthritis, migraine, burns, wounds, infections, circulatory problems, etc.), and IPT has been reported to relieve pain by successfully treating those illnesses.

In the short run, IPT can also potentiate normal pain killers. From conversations with Dr. Perez Garcia 3, I know that IPT potentiates nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medications, giving better and longer lasting results with much smaller doses.

And I suspect that IPT can also potentiate opiate pain relievers and their derivatives. [At one time I began a study of IPT and morphine in mice at Frank Porrecca's lab at the University of Arizona, but I never finished it.] Perhaps, by using smaller doses, it might even avoid to some extent the adaptation and addiction process. Certainly IPT has been demonstrated to help detoxify people addicted to drugs, and to reduce or eliminate craving. If this tests out, doctors could be less reserved about giving patients enough medication to neutralize their pain, since potential addiction would be less of a threat.

More research is definitely needed... But if safe and gentle IPT treatments can bring rapid and long lasting pain relief to patients, I am all for it.