Sometimes we accept pain as part of what life throws at us. We get so caught up in dealing with pain one day at a time that we often forget that there may be something we can actually do about it. So what are some of the non-traditional options? You need to think outside the box and try lots of things. There is no cure-all that works for everyone.

Traditional western medicine tends to focus on just a few of the options: medication; surgery; and physical therapy. However, there are lots of other options available if you simply have the faith to try them. Beware of medical practitioners that frown upon alternative therapies because they were not invented by conventional medical practitioners like themselves. After all, you should not care whether the treatment is traditional or alternative so long as it does the business for you.

I get extremely tired of listening to medical practitioners who do not accept that alternative therapies work, because they have no scientific proof of their efficacy. Tell this to the billion plus faithful people that believe in a higher being, although there is no scientific proof that He really exists. You must be pragmatic. If the pain treatment works for you, you should not really care if your local medical practitioner approves of it or not.

Traditional acupuncture has been around for more than 2,000 years. Successful treatments have been offered to patients for pain management long before western medicine, as we know it, existed. Electro-acupuncture is relatively new but it closely mirrors the treatment offered by traditional acupuncture. The real difference is that there are no needles involved and it can be self-administered on a daily basis at home. Thousands of people will vouch for its effectiveness.

Hypnosis has evolved to the point where major surgeries can be carried out using hypnosis to control bleeding and pain and where the patient not only feels nothing, there is minimal bleeding from open wounds. Milton Erickson, MD, who died in 1980, was a pioneer in this area and his use of trance and specific language cues resulted in tremendous success in pain management for his patients. It is well worth considering clinical hypnosis as a method to deal with your pain.

Reflexology has also been around for several thousand years. Modern day reflexology has its origins in Zone Therapy which was pioneered by Dr. William H. Fitzgerald. He divided the body into ten zones and demonstrated how pressure and stimulation of various points on the body could relieve pain affecting organs, body parts and glands within various zones. Zone Therapy was adopted by Eunice Ingham, a physiotherapist, in her treatment of patients in the 1930's. She concentrated on finding a single area of the body on which the rest of the body was mapped out. She found that a therapeutic effect could be achieved by using pressure from her thumbs and fingers on specific tender spots which related to problems elsewhere in the body. The important point to bear in mind is that regardless of how and why it works, reflexology does work and regularly benefits thousands of people.