Top 5 Nerve Pain Home Remedies

Nerve pain hits millions of adults every year.

And it’s not just shooting pain. Sometimes it feels like an electric shock. Or like getting jabbed with pins and needles. Or burning pain.

But sometimes it’s not even "pain” so much as numbness and weakness. Or an in-the-middle annoying, tingling, "my foot just woke up” feeling.

Fortunately, there are some simple and natural things you can do yourself right at home to help ease or even completely stop these symptoms of nerve pain.

Nerve pain home remedy #1: anti-inflammatory diet

The first thing that you can do to relieve nerve pain is to make some simple changes to your diet.

Nerve pain is often associated with inflammation. By switching to an anti-inflammatory diet consisting of healthy whole foods, you can decrease inflammation and ease the pain and discomfort associated with it.

At the same time, avoid inflammatory processed foods, foods high in sugar, and fast foods so you don’t sabotage your own efforts. Here’s a quick list of anti-inflammatory foods to eat and inflammatory foods to avoid:

Nerve rain home remedy #2: heat and ice

Heat and ice can be used to shock the body out of the pain-spasm cycle. Heat relaxes the nerves that fire pain signals, while ice numbs them.

Use a zip-loc bag with crushed ice in a bit of water. Remove all of the air from the bag. A wet paper towel between the ice pack and your skin will help prevent overcooling your skin.

Heat can be applied with a heating pad or even a hot moist towel. A hot tub might be an option for some.

The most effective healing heat by far is far infrared heat which penetrates as much as 3 inches compared to the surface-only heating of most heat sources. Far infrared heat penetrates deeper to soothe pain, relax muscles, and improve circulation to help nerves heal.

Tip: Try alternating heat and ice, 20 minutes each, for three repetitions each. Be sure to finish with the ice.

Nerve pain home remedy #3: acupressure

If you’ve never tried acupressure, you should give it a try. It’s completely safe to perform on yourself and others and can often bring fast pain relief.

Acupressure offers many benefits including:

• Direct finger pressure and elongated hand massage during acupressure stimulates the brain to release its "feel good" endorphins.
• This in turn reduces your sensitivity to the pain and burning symptoms while normalizing your nervous system.
• Add a massaging motion to the painful area to help remove excess lymph and inflammation, improve blood circulation and reduce pressure that is irritating your nerves.

Since sciatica is one of the most common forms of nerve pain, we recently posted a free video using acupressure to relieve sciatic pain.

Nerve pain home remedy #4: stretching / range of motion

Tight muscles are frequent contributors to nerve pain. Sometimes they pinch the nerve directly, such as when the sciatic nerve gets pinched while traveling through your piriformis muscle.

Stretching these overly tight muscles increase their length while loosening their stranglehold on your nerves, often resulting in immediate pain relief. Stretching can also improve the effective range of motion in your joints.

Gentle but correct whole body stretching is best for reducing stiffness, improving blood flow and increasing range of motion over the entire body. But for quick relief from nerve pain, simply stretching the affected area may be all that’s needed.

• For carpal tunnel syndrome stretch the neck, shoulders, forearms and wrists.
• For sciatica and lower back pain stretch the muscles of the hips, buttock and legs. (Here’s a great stretch for fast sciatica relief.)
• For facial and shoulder pain stretch the neck, shoulders and upper back.

Nerve pain home remedy #5: proteolytic enzymes

Systemic inflammation throughout your body can kill you. It also happens to be murder on your nerves. Yet most of us have some level of systemic inflammation all the time.

Your body’s production of proteolytic enzymes which keep inflammation in check drops off dramatically by your late 20s.

They’re also responsible for breaking down and removing excess blood-clot forming fibrin and scar tissue out of your arteries.

By supplementing with proteolytic enzymes, excess fibrin can be cleared again allowing more oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to supply the affected nerves and remove metabolic waste which can further irritate them.

The combination of helping restore good circulation and fighting inflammation throughout your body makes proteolytic enzymes a very safe and effective tool both for fighting nerve pain and restoring good health.

10 more tips to relieve nerve pain at home

Here are some other self-care and home treatments that can help you feel better and prevent more serious problems to your overall health.

1. Warm tub bath A relaxing bath is an easy and inexpensive home treatment for nerve pain. Add two cups of Epsom salt for additional healing and pain relief.
2. Sleep habits Keep a bedtime routine that allows eight hours of quality sleep.
3. Monitor diabetes If you are diabetic, keep blood sugar levels as normal as possible. This is the best treatment for diabetic nerve pain.
4. Regular walks Exercise prompts your body to release natural painkillers called endorphins, plus it increases blood flow to the nerves in your legs and feet.
5. Aromatherapy Studies have shown that applying botanical oils can reduce the pain of neuralgia when massaged into the affected area.
6. Meditation Stress management techniques such as meditation can help some people with nerve pain live better.
7. Avoid alcohol Too much alcohol use can worsen nerve pain.
8. Monitor weight It’s important to maintain a healthy weight to avoid back strain and internal inflammation.
9. Homeopathics Phosphorous, belladonna and naja help calm nerves from shooting pain signals to your brain.
10. Methylsulfonylmethane MSM for short, this organic sulfur compound blocks "c" pain nerve fibers from firing.