I tend to agree with you about pain-killers, they can be a tricky thing. Sure, if you have a terible hangover and you take a pil every now and then, it's one thing. Taking them often is another.

If you don't know why you feel the pain, it can be a totally different story, especially if the pain, discomfort, etc is reoccuring. Pain can be like an alert the body emmits to make you aware that something is wrong, and needs your attention. Shutting down the alert doesn't fix the problem. On the contrary, pain-killers can make you ignore it until it's too late for it to be fixed.

With herbal medicine you first need to discover why you feel the pain and then try a few things in relation to the cause, not the symptom. If something works great, if not the solution is to go to the doctor to get examined. When (should I say if?) the docs tell you that you have this condition you can see what herbal medicine you can use to complement the suggested medical treatment, after talking about it with them. At least this is how I see things with what I learned so far.

(I seldom write that much. it's a topic that I find so fascinating and I haven't thought about for a while, so thank you for reminding me. And now I stop, I promise! hahaha)