Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) greatly reduced pain and
disability from osteoarthritis in a study at England’s
University of Plymouth. Every day, twenty-seven brave souls
applied the fresh leaves to their arthritic fingers and endured
nettle’s characteristic sting caused by formic acid in its leaf
hairs. This old folk remedy helped the study’s participants so
much that they were able to reduce their use of analgesic and
anti-inflammatory drugs. In fact, half of them preferred using
nettles over standard pain relief medication. Eighty-five
percent said they didn’t even mind the small welts that
sometimes appeared. When the experiment was repeated five weeks
later using white dead nettle (Lamium album) as a placebo
(because it resembles stinging nettle), it did not produce the
same results. Previous studies make researchers think that
nettles reduce sensations of the pain pathway. Source: Randall,
C., et al. “Randomized controlled trial of nettle sting for
treatment of base-of-thumb pain.” Journal of the Royal