Home remedies · Back, muscles & joints
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Apply a hazelnut-sized amount of comfrey ointment thinly to the sore spot three to four times a day and let it soak in. Over one to three weeks; if there is no difference after two, stop. Do not massage a fresh bruise — laying it on is enough.
Two substances carry it. Allantoin promotes cell division in the skin and the tissue beneath and makes the horny layer more permeable — which is what lets the rest in at all. Rosmarinic acid inhibits inflammatory messengers. Among plant ointments, comfrey has comparatively the best evidence: in fresh ankle sprain and in knee osteoarthritis it was tested against a sham ointment and, in one trial, against an anti-inflammatory gel, with advantages in pain and movement. The trials are small and partly funded by the maker — that belongs with it.
Only on unbroken skin. The reason is a second substance in the plant: pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which act on the liver. Ready-made ointments are selected or freed of them; home-made root extracts are not. So: no home preparation, not on open wounds, not in pregnancy or while breastfeeding, in children only after advice, and not longer than six weeks at a stretch.
A joint that cannot bear weight after an injury, is visibly out of line, or swells fast and hard. Likewise numbness, tingling, or a calf that hurts on one side, is warm and swollen.
Have it assessed rather than treated at home: back pain with numbness in the saddle area, disturbed bladder or bowel function, weakness or fever. A joint that cannot bear weight after an injury, or is deformed. A one-sided swollen, warm leg.