8.
Food FIXES for Pain
Pain is one of medicine’s most complicated challenges, but the
right food can help you feel better.
The worst pain I ever felt happened some ten years ago when I broke a tooth. I
was flying to do an appearance on Oprah’s show, and we experienced some bad
turbulence. Just as I bit down on a nut (healthy stress reliever!), we hit an air
pocket. I felt my tooth snap as we dropped a hundred feet. Hour by hour, the
pain just kept getting worse. Turned out I’d cracked the root, and it was getting
infected and inflamed. I did the show, probably looking like a cross between a
chipmunk and an Ultimate Fighter, then flew home.
When you fly, any air trapped in your body expands. You don’t normally feel
it except in your ears, unless you, say, have an abscess like I did. The pain was
off the charts. I would have gladly replaced Dustin Hoffman with the crazy
dentist in Marathon Man just to get relief. Using words that I could never print
or say on TV, I went straight to my local hospital and saw a dental surgeon, who
drained the abscess without bothering to use anaesthesia because the pressure
was so high.
Felt. So. Good.
Yes, the pain was bad enough that a surgeon jamming a needle into my gums
came as heavenly relief. But even in horrible moments like my plane ride from
hell, it’s important to realize that the biological purpose of pain isn’t sinister. It’s
actually intended to help, not hurt. Pain is a message to take action.