Pain

Aajonus was explicit and consistent on this point across many contexts: "Whenever you have pain, it is always swelling from detoxifying industrial chemicals from the area." Swelling provides increased nutrients to the painful area to allow for proper detoxification and healing. When toxins have been removed, swelling reduces. When healing has been properly initiated and balance restored, pain subsides.

This framing applies universally in his system. Whether the pain is from arthritis, fibromyalgia, dental infection, broken bones, muscle injuries, nerve damage, or the radiating aches of a systemic detox cycle, the underlying mechanism is the same: the body is moving fluid and resources into an area to clean it out and rebuild it, and that movement of fluid creates pressure that registers as pain.

Discomfort also results when the body cannot fully contain industrial toxins without causing local cellular irritation and destruction. Sometimes the body builds more tissue around toxins to harness and confine them. When it is unable to do so without that cellular irritation, it attempts to rid itself of the toxins entirely. The pain is the body's signal that this process is active and needs support, not suppression.

Because pain comes from pressure on nerves in a tense area where swelling is occurring, the single most important physical intervention is heat. Heat promotes relaxation of bones, cartilage, tendons, arteries, veins, muscles, nerves, connective tissue, and skin. Relaxed tissues can expand to accommodate the swelling. When they expand, the pressure on nerves decreases, and pain decreases with it.

Aajonus stated that applying heat "allows tissues to relax and expand with swelling so that less pain is experienced." He reported that usually 85 percent of pain is relieved within 15 minutes of heat application. He noted a specific caveat: when applying heat, tendons, cartilage, and ligaments may take 5 to 15 minutes to relax, and pain may temporarily increase during that window before those tissues expand. This is expected and normal.

His preferred heat delivery method was hot water bottles rather than heating pads. Heating pads produce electromagnetic fields that alter the molecular structure of cells. He cited a paper issued by the city of Los Angeles acknowledging that electromagnetic fields of varying degrees posed health risks. Hot water bottles provide heat without that electromagnetic component, and they can be positioned without applying compressive pressure. Specifically, he advised placing hot water bottles beside or under an area rather than on top of it, so that the heat promotes expansion rather than compression. For pain anywhere in the torso, he recommended placing hot water bottles under the arms. If placed on top of a swollen or painful area, the weight defeats the purpose of trying to allow the tissues space to expand.

He also described using hot water bottles on injured areas during sleep and between meals. For a hand injury, for example, he recommended resting the hand on a hot water bottle as often and as long as possible, combined with the Pain Formula eaten with meat meals.

A warm bath was the most powerful immediate pain relief tool Aajonus described from his own experience. He returned to this protocol repeatedly across different periods of his life and different kinds of pain.

When he was suffering from excruciating pain following radiation therapy that had effectively cauterized portions of his spine, he could not sit, could not lie down in a soft bed, and could barely move without triggering severe pain. He described how getting into a hot bath with Epsom salt or sea salt made his body buoyant, removing the compressive pressure from his spine, back, and legs entirely. The relief was dramatic. He was able to sleep in the bathtub for one to two hours at a time when he could not sleep at all on a bed or floor. The cast iron clawfoot bathtub he used held heat longer than other tubs, allowing him to maintain the water temperature for 20 to 40 minutes without it becoming too cold.

Later, during the phase when he was eating raw foods and still managing residual pain from radiation damage, he found that adding milk, sea salt, and vinegar to the bath together created a slight buoyancy and helped discharge pain through the nervous system. He described the mechanism this way: after being in the bath for half an hour or longer, the nerves begin to work differently, and all the energy that was being directed toward registering pain in the brain starts releasing out through the body instead. He fell asleep in the bath and woke two hours later, rewarmed the water, and returned to sleep, repeating this cycle through the night.

During his recovery from a severe motorcycle or bicycle injury in Thailand, he was confined to a hotel room for six and a half weeks. He placed two cups of coconut cream in the bathtub, effectively lying in oil and water, and described the pain going away within minutes of entering the water. In the bed, he would wake in excruciating pain after an hour and a half and have to travel by wheelchair and crutches to the bath to get relief. He required assistance to lift his injured leg into the tub.

He described the physiological effect directly: the bath removes gravitational and mechanical pressure on the tissues, allows everything to relax, and changes how the nervous system routes pain signals. The buoyancy produced by salt and fats in the water specifically reduces the mechanical load that forces compression on damaged structures.

For someone waking in the night to excruciating pain from detoxification, the warm bath was his consistent first recommendation as an immediate intervention. It does not stop the detoxification. It allows the body to continue its work while the person is not immobilized by the pain signal.

Ice was something Aajonus allowed only as a brief numbing measure, and he was sharply critical of its widespread use in sports medicine and injury treatment. He described athletes who relied on ice therapy and other cold interventions to manage injuries and keep playing. His assessment was that this approach ends careers. Athletes who use ice to suppress pain and return to play are not healing. They are interrupting the healing process, keeping toxins in the tissue, and progressively degrading their capacity to compete.

His specific statement was: "Don't use ice, except if it's just to numb the pain for a minute." Ice does not promote healing. It suppresses circulation, which is the opposite of what the body needs. The body increases circulation to damaged areas precisely to deliver nutrients for detoxification and repair. Cold reverses this. Toxins remain. Disease develops.

Aajonus described the mechanical origin of pain in detail. When tissues are tight rather than relaxed, everything in that area, including tendons, ligaments, muscles, and nerves, is under pressure. That pressure against nerves is the pain signal. When heat is applied and the tissues relax, the pressure decreases. The nerves are no longer being compressed. Pain diminishes.

He used a headache as an example of this same mechanism at a different scale. The brain itself has no nerves capable of registering pain because it is made of neurons, not nerve tissue in the pain-signaling sense. Brain surgery can be performed without anesthetic and the patient feels nothing in the brain tissue itself. But the meningi, the layered coating around the brain, contains nerves, and Aajonus described the meningi as being up to 11 layers thick. When the brain swells, whether from detoxification or fluid accumulation, it presses outward against those meningeal layers, which in turn press against the skull. That pressure on the meningi's nerve-rich layers is a headache. The skull cannot expand, so the pressure builds in the meningi.

The same compression mechanism appears elsewhere. Metal contamination getting into nerve endings causes mass swelling. White blood cells rush to the site. The nerve gets pushed and pushed, and the tension on it makes the pain excruciating. In the spine, if tissue becomes rigid and calcified from radiation damage, even tiny movements cause the vertebrae to pinch and lacerate the surrounding nerves. Every movement produces pain because the tissues cannot flex and absorb force.

Because pain signals an active healing process, Aajonus's framework requires enduring it rather than stopping it. He stated explicitly: "The objective should be to manage and endure pain until the body finishes its tasks. Otherwise, toxins remain in the tissue and diseases progress." This was not a vague philosophical position. He described living it personally, over decades, with levels of pain most people will never experience.

He described learning, through years of chronic pain from the sequelae of radiation, chemotherapy, and pharmaceutical treatment, that fighting pain makes it worse. The analogy he returned to most often was the charley horse. When a muscle cramps, lactic acid builds up and the fibers go into a knot. The more you rub or fight it, the worse it gets. If you tense against it, the cramp intensifies. If you relax through it, circulation eventually brings what the muscle needs to release the contraction. Heart attacks, in his framework, are a version of this same thing: a charley horse of cardiac muscle triggered by some chemical mixture arresting the heart. He described surviving multiple heart attacks by learning to go completely limp, breathe very slowly and shallowly, and allow the pain to pass through him rather than tensing against it. He would sometimes pass out and revive, but he attributed his survival specifically to not tensing, which would have compounded the cramping of the cardiac muscle.

He applied this same principle to all forms of pain throughout his life. He cried, he screamed, he did whatever the body needed, but he did not try to stop the pain. He released it. He described developing something like a self-hypnosis state to get through the worst episodes, essentially disengaging his resistance to the pain so it could move through rather than building.

Aajonus developed and refined pain formulas over many years. The core logic is that certain raw food combinations absorb and bind with the toxins being released during detoxification, remove them from the tissue, and provide nutrients to support repair. Without this support, the released toxins continue to circulate and cause further swelling and pain.

He described the evolution of his pain formula through several versions. The most developed version he referred to as the "advanced pain formula" or sometimes just the pain formula:

Two raw eggs, four ounces of raw cream (or raw coconut cream if raw cream is not available), five level tablespoons of bee pollen, one teaspoon of unheated honey, and one and a half tablespoons of lemon or lime juice. Blend for 30 to 50 seconds. While drinking this blend, eat a one-inch by one-inch by three-inch slice of raw cheese.

He described this as essentially the lubrication formula with bee pollen added. The lubrication formula penetrates deep into tissues, reaching joints, bones, and areas that do not get adequate lubrication under normal circumstances. The bee pollen brings additional concentrated nutrient support. The lemon or lime juice is sometimes necessary and sometimes not. He noted that the formula works most of the time without the citrus, but for some people the lemon or lime is what makes the difference. The amount is specifically one level teaspoon, no more.

The cheese eaten alongside the formula is critical. He described cheese as a binding agent that absorbs and carries toxins out. The cheese should be eaten as you drink the formula, not separately. The combination of the blended formula and the cheese together produces a more complete effect than either alone.

For dental pain specifically, which he described as "the second worst pain in the world" because of how long it takes to reach the roots and bones, a person may need two of these formulas per day. He also noted that during periods of intense dental pain in his own experience, he had to avoid fruit entirely and avoid eating eggs unless combined with meat, to prevent the eggs from being converted into a solvent that would increase rather than decrease pain.

He gave this specific warning about eggs during pain: eating eggs is usually necessary during pain because eggs bind with toxins and remove them from the body. However, sometimes eating eggs causes more detoxification, which increases or prolongs pain. If pain increases rather than decreases 20 minutes after eating eggs, stop eating eggs until the pain has ceased. After pain stops, wait two days before eating eggs again.

Beyond the full pain formula, Aajonus described many simpler combinations that reduce pain with varying degrees of effectiveness for different situations. These include honey and cheese together, dates and cheese together, butter and dates with cheese, cheese and banana, cheese with butter and banana, and butter with banana alone. All of these combinations involve a fat and a relatively dense food.

He described butter and honey together as a reliable mild pain reducer, as was unripe banana with raw butter (approximately two inches of unripe banana with two tablespoons of raw butter). These were his go-to combinations during his motorcycle injury recovery when he needed something quick and accessible.

For muscular pain specifically, he recommended drinking plenty of full-fat raw milk, unripe bananas, fresh raw unripe pineapple, unripe melon, non-steamed dates and figs, and plenty of raw eggs. For pain behind the knees, which he described as often related to anemia, raw meat was the specific recommendation. Pain in the temples he identified as a sign of toxic blood, and he recommended fresh raw lemon juice drunk between meals. For fissures in the fingertips causing pain, he recommended a quart of raw cream daily for one to two weeks, then half a cup daily until the condition stabilizes. If raw cream is unavailable, fresh whole coconut cream mixed with unheated honey was the substitute.

For general pain, eating any raw fat, especially combined with unheated honey, was described as broadly useful.

Aajonus described this consequence through multiple examples. The clearest involved lidocaine-based joint injections used to treat arthritis. Lidocaine is a numbing agent produced with a sugar compound. Because it is designed to enter and alter nerve cells, it carries sugar into nerve tissue, causing nerve destruction. The body responds to lidocaine by depositing minerals around it, hardening nerves and surrounding tissue, which causes permanent mild to severe sensory loss. The injection does not remove toxins from the joints. It contains additional toxins, and the body deposits mineral layers to neutralize them.

Pain in arthritic joints is the body's signal that toxicity has accumulated there and that circulation is needed to remove it. Arthritis is swelling from toxicity stored in joints, inter-cellularly or extra-cellularly. He estimated from experience that 90 percent of arthritis comes from leaky gut. Injecting the pain away does not change the underlying toxicity. The toxins remain in the joint. The joint continues to deteriorate. Because the pain signal has been severed, the person does not know to make changes in diet and lifestyle. Eventually, the deterioration advances so far that entirely new and surrounding nerves are affected and excruciating pain returns. He described seeing several such cases end in joint replacement, and described some joints dissolving painlessly from toxicity without further notice, with complete loss of mobility.

He noted two cases where people had the lidocaine and sugar-water injection to remove arthritic pain and then immediately adopted the Primal Diet. Those two people did not experience the same destructive outcome, presumably because the dietary change began addressing the underlying toxicity even though the pain signal had been removed. This was the edge case he presented, not a general endorsement of the procedure.

The same principle applies to all pain suppression. When pain that is designed to make us change and correct the way we feed and treat our bodies is ignored, the toxins and conditions that produced the pain continue unopposed.

One specific mechanism Aajonus described was the role of bile in producing nerve pain when the diet is deficient in fat. Bile is normally used to digest fats, breaking them down to their smallest molecule so they can be dispersed and utilized throughout the tissues and inside nerve tissue. When the body is not getting enough dietary fat, it uses bile as a surrogate fat-binding agent for toxins instead. Bile is a caustic substance by nature. Running throughout the body without the buffering presence of dietary fats, it eats away at nerve tissue. This was his explanation for the nerve pain associated with herpes and similar conditions.

The solution is to eat the proper fats consistently. Without them, the body has no choice but to deploy its own digestive acids in places they do not belong, and the result is progressive nerve damage accompanied by pain.

Dental pain occupied a substantial section of Aajonus's discussions of pain because it is especially resistant to the body's normal management strategies. The tooth has very limited space for swelling, and the nerve is in a confined bony structure. When a drill bit gets hot and burns the nerve, the blistered tissue cannot swell and drain freely the way soft tissue can. That is why burned dental nerve pain persists for days while a brief direct mechanical contact with the nerve (the drill briefly touching it) causes a sharp pain that passes in 15 to 30 seconds.

He described the difference explicitly. A drill hitting a nerve directly produces an instant of pain, gone in 15 to 20 seconds. A hot drill bit burning the nerve produces blistered tissue, dead nerve cells, fluid that has to be mobilized into the confined space of the tooth to dissolve and remove those dead cells, and pain that can last days or weeks. Anesthetics like epinephrine and novocaine harden the whole mouth, stop circulation into the bone, cause eventual dental problems, bone problems, and gum problems. He never used anesthetic for dental work from the early 1970s onward, preferring to manage the brief moments of direct nerve contact rather than suffer the long-term consequences of the anesthetic itself.

He recommended the pain formula before dental procedures, describing eating butter, egg, cheese, and bee pollen blended together before going in, with lots of cheese, milk, cream, and butter in the days leading up to it, to build up his nutritional reserves.

For exposed nerves and infected teeth, he described the use of biocalyx, a calcium powder placed on the nerve before a filling is placed over it. The calcium absorbs excess moisture, stops the swelling, and prevents ongoing pain. He contrasted this with the common practice of placing a filling directly on top of the nerve, which causes permanent pain. Packing the gums with soft room-temperature cheese or thick clay and applying a hot water bottle to the face without applying pressure were also described as immediate supports for dental pain, with the caveat that if cheese creates too much heat in the area after 10 minutes, it should be removed and clay used instead.

Aajonus described managing pain from physical injuries using the same framework applied to all other pain: support circulation to the area, do not suppress swelling, apply heat, use the pain formula, provide the body with what it needs to heal.

During his recovery from what he described as a severe leg injury in Thailand, he experienced regular excruciating pain with any movement. He used hot water bottles to increase circulation, which increased swelling, and he described that as correct, not something to prevent. The increased swelling ensured increased nutrient flow to the injuries. The heat allowed everything to relax. Pain subsided but never disappeared, and he described that as appropriate. He managed it by bathing in warm water with coconut cream when the pain became intolerable.

For a back injury where he tore the muscles of his lower back while stringing a crossbow, he immediately applied hot water bottles to the area to get circulation moving, and took the pain formula. He described the pain formula as working 95 percent of the time, and noted he had increased that figure with refinements to the formula in recent years.

Aajonus used the image of gutting a house and rebuilding it to describe what is happening in the body during a period of painful detoxification and regeneration. All of the things that accompany disease, the pain, the increased circulation, the nutrients flooding into an area, the tissue being dissolved and removed, the cells being regenerated, are the active processes of repair. The area is not functional during this process just as a gutted house is not livable during renovation. He described being unable to function for days at a time during his own major detox periods, crippled to the floor, and described that as the process doing what it needed to do.

The pain is proof of work being done. When the work is complete, the pain resolves. Supporting the process, rather than stopping it, is what allows the rebuilding to proceed properly.

---