Medicinal Plants for Joint Pain in Traditional Persian Medicine

Abstract

Joint pains can be resulted by many factors of which osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are the most popular ones. Treatment of both conditions usually involves pain killers. Chronic joint pains are associated with a high usage of herbal medicines. Herbal remedies are the main part of many traditional medical schools specially Traditional Persian Medicine. This study is conducted to present herbal remedies for joint pain from important treatises of Traditional Persian Medicine. Five manuscripts of the most comprehensive pharmacopeias in TPM which cover more than 900 years of golden ages and also commonly used by natural healers were used. Totally more than 120 medicinal herbs were mentioned for joint pain in those treatises, but 105 herbs from 59 different families were identified. This list of traditional herbal medicines, some of which were used for 1000 years for joint pain, this perennial problem, can provide a basis for further studies and therefore finding more effective drugs to help solving more problems in this area.