Zark, Fiona, i've been in a slight slide into pain for two weeks so i started using a Cook Islands brand noni as it was in a smaller and therefore cheaper form.
First dose my back was better (5 down to 3) and second dose my neck less stiff (6 down to 4) - see what happens long term.
I'd say from reputation alone that the stuff does something for pain ( a light-hearted "testimonial" follows), but all the outrageous claims and panacea stuff is a bit dubious - the huge industry and cost is off-putting.
And is preservative, pastuerized or fermented the best? Well that depends on whichever product the sales-person represents. Same goes for Tahitian, Hawain or Cook Island strains. So little science so much hype.
Also, those polysaccharides are of real NSD/LSD concern - numb away the pain, but possibly cause more to be generated? Bit like NSAIDs! Bit like Nicotine or Opiates!
If true, then no wonder the pain returns as soon as one stops taking it. As i said before, i'd be very interested in an extract......
All the best if it works well for you.
One more thing - i have a strong gut feeling that one should not not mix it with alcohol.
Interested in any info on the Malaysian fermentation process - as long as it does not end up smelling like belachan!
"Borrowed" from sailor/songster Dan Peek -
DRIFTIN AND TALES FROM THE LOST ISLANDS...In reply to:
Froot Joose - Although I'm not a total adherent to the all-natural lifestyle, I do confess that I love fruit juice and fruit-juice related products. In the islands grows a tree called variously, pain tree, noni or cheesefruit. You may call it ugly fruit or use it to polish your floors, it makes no difference to me, but the natives would line up at the fence asking for it. At the corner of an old water cistern grew such a tree with an abundance of fruit. Week after week we picked up buckets of this strange fruit and gave it away, the more we picked off the more it gave out. Now here's the strange part: it stank like cheese, hence our desire to rid ourselves of it. The first hint of the fruit was actually pleasant, a mix of coconut and pine, but as the odd-shaped gnarly, hairy green fruit began to ripen, the smell changed to something strangely akin to an ill-used diaper-pail. Yet, the natives regarded it with great respect, claiming that to drink its juice would render one pain free. Apparently the taste was at least as offensive as the smell, yet the juice sold for a small fortune in the village health store. David DeMontagnac, our dear Jamaican neighbor told us it was also used to polish floors and how he remembered riding his housekeeper like a Toy Horse as a lad whilst she ground the fruit into the heart of mahogany floors to make them shine like glass, grinding and polishing the slimy fruit down deep into the grain with the fibrous half of a dried coconut husk. Anyway that's the story of the noni-fruit. This song is actually about pineapple juice.
Ted
proAS_KickAS
