In this episode the surgeons discuss what is the best topical medicine for pain. They discuss the components they believe can help control musculoskeletal pain symptoms. Oral pain medicine can have side effects. Topical treatments are very safe.
Hi welcome to another episode of talking with docs i’m dr. paul’s alzo and i’m dr. brad weenie okay so today’s topic we’re gonna cover what is the best topical ointment or cream to use on my arthritis or my sore muscles or bones a lot of people are looking for the answer to this so stay tuned okay first of all what why do we like using topical treatments for
Like arthritis of the knee or the hand or sprains and strains because it smell good they smell awesome it’s not the answer they can smell good but the main reason like topicals is because they’re safe yes totally agree i love using topicals if they can reduce the number of pills any of my patients have to take especially my older patients love topical i have
Some elderly patients that take so many pills i’m like do you have room for lunch yeah like you’re on so many different medications you have time to eat lunch cause you got that set up there you got yeah the whole tray opened day one day two day three and day one’s got like 50 pills in it it’s confusing i can i’m on one medication i’m gonna say that i supposed
To take every day i can’t remember to take it so if i start twitching or fall asleep our talks without and take my medication okay all right so we like them because they’re safe anti-inflammatories and your topical presenta if you took an anti-inflammatory pill yep like an aspirin type of pill there’s some risks with that yeah i worry about my stomach i might
Worry about bleeding i might worry about blood pressure kidney function how it affects my diabetes so many factors yeah i mean these complications are rare and those medications are very effective in a supervised setting however it’s always saver do not take it yeah because they carry some risk okay so we like topicals because they’re safe okay we like topicals
Because they’re effective yes they deliver the treatment right to the source of the pain right you’ve got a sore thumb you’re putting it on your thumb sore knee you’re putting it on your knee right instead of taking it having it go through your entire blood stream to get to that part you’re putting it right on that part and science is more organized now too so
They do studies to show that using a top of a head some medicine in it versus a topical that’s just a placebo the one with medicine actually works and they’ve tried lots of different kinds of things so we have evidence that topicals are effective yeah okay i like that they’re versatile you could put a whole bunch of different things in the top of them multimodal
That’s the buzzword right there now our pain gurus and our specialists say that we have to use a multi-modal approach to pain which means don’t just use one thing i use a bunch of different types of things and you can get topicals that are multi modal and when you say multiple you mean like anti-inflammatory muscle relaxant nerve agent local anesthetic there’s
A whole bunch of different choices right right okay so that’s why we like topical so what is going on is it easy to use your heard use they’re very hard to use because you have to put a dab on your finger and put it on the spot i’m just kidding they’re easy to use easy it’s very easy to use okay and you know guys like us we don’t look at the instruction manual
You know i mean first you i’m putting together a table or a desk i don’t look at the instruction no and i usually put together wrong yeah except for when i’m doing surgery of course i look at the instruction manual oh yeah okay so that’s why we like tacos now what is the best topical to use i think the answer is that it really depends right on a whole bunch of
Things what’s in it yep we’re gonna give you the tools here to understand what to look for inside the topical that might work okay yep so first of all i think it’s important for it to have an anti inflammatory component to it something in there that’s an anti inflammatory i would agree i like that i like some type of anesthetic in mine yeah something that’s
Gonna sort of numb calm the nerves down yep and just give some kind of anesthetic and then you can get in to have something in there that might act on the muscle yum that’s gonna relax the muscle in the air cuz you get some muscle spasm around these sort of musculoskeletal pains and then i’d say the last thing is that a lot of pain pathology relates to functions
Of the nervous system maybe kind of a specific effect on the nerves yeah so if you can find a top well has a few different components in it that can attack the pain pathways from those different angles that’s gonna be your best one and ultimately because they’re so safe and easy to use yeah you can try a few different ones and see which one works for you yes okay
Some work better on with some people some work better on other people and it is a little bit of trial and error for sure yeah i did the other thing that seems to be coming along the pipe is dvd and things like cannabis type products in a topical is potentially gonna be the future of some of these types ooh yeah that is that is something coming down the pipe there
Hasn’t been a ton of evidence yet on that because they’re just gaining approval over time a year or two however there are some studies showing that there are some studies showing they’re gonna look at that question yeah down the road i’m gonna go get a topical we’re big fans of using topical treatments for musculoskeletal problems we’ve sort of given you the idea
What what our take is and what a good one would be do it with the supervision of your darker though to ask you know ask suggestions mention your what you’re thinking about and then you can kind of decide together sure you often you need your doctor because some of these are over-the-counter but the over-the-counter ones usually aren’t multimodal and usually
Aren’t very strong that’s right i’m gonna put the prescription strength ones usually get the drug levels the topical drug levels up to a point where they can actually have a good effect yeah so hey if you like this video please like it and subscribe to our channel and remember you are in charge of your own health we’ll see you next time
Transcribed from video
Best Topical Medicine for Pain By Talking With Docs