You know that physical pain is sometimes the worst, and often you can't do anything about it. The good news is that medicine is evolving; more and more experiments are being conducted, new treatments are approved, and innovative alternatives are slowly accepted as improving remedies.
What is CBD
As a component of cannabis, cannabidiol is a popular natural remedy that is not psychoactive, meaning that it won't cause the sensation of getting high, like the THC component. It is legal in most places and used for relieving pain, helping with stress and anxiety, and even added to foods and beverages.
There are three types of CBD that you should know about:
- Full-spectrum: includes all parts of the cannabis plants and contains less than 0.3% THC. It is also used in anti-seizure, anti-inflammatory treatments, but if it's administered in a large dose, it might make you euphoric)
- Broad-spectrum: includes most of the cannabis plant components. It's an excellent antibiotic and has the same benefits as the full-spectrum CBD, but it doesn't contain THC, making it less effective.
- Isolates: the purest form of CBD. If you're curious about CBD, you can start with the isolated one because there are no active compounds, therefore no risks of getting euphoric. At the same time, it's the one that has the least effective results on physical pain.
Here is a list of conditions associated with severe physical pain CBD can improve.
Chronic pain
One of the most known problems in the adult population, chronic pain, is estimated to develop more as you age. Some factors might influence the progress of the condition, such as:
- Sex (more women experience chronic pain throughout their lives than men)
- Family history of chronic pain
- Traumas and even bad posture
- Stress (for example, high-intensity stress will later induce migraines)
- Insomnia (the cause of migraines, chronic lower back pain, high comorbidity)
How can you use CBD to alleviate chronic pain? Some studies suggest a seven-day treatment for pain. For example, Sativex, a CBD-based product, is an oral spray approved in the UK for treating pain in multiple sclerosis. The study observed that participants felt improvements in muscle spasms, pain and walking ability.
Inflammation
Inflammation occurs when your immune system protects the body from infection, injury or disease. Besides pain, inflammation has some other symptoms: redness, swelling and loss of function. Usual causes of rashes refer to:
- Chronic conditions
- Certain medicine
- Some types of foods (sugar, alcohol, processed meat)
It seems like CBD can reduce chronic and acute inflammation symptoms. You can use either tinctures/oils from cbdplanetuk.com to show fast results or lotions and creams that you can apply to a specific body area. It can also be added to foods and beverages if you don't like raw oils.
Arthritis
There are a few types of arthritis, but more studies were conducted for osteoarthritis (where the cartilage slowly breaks down) and inflammation associated with arthritis. These conditions are degenerative, which means they worsen with time and age; therefore, their treatments focus on reducing symptoms (pain, swelling, redness, stiffness). It also causes a decrease in the range of motions; in time, it can lead to losing joints' alignment and shape.
How is CBD used in arthritis? It has been reported that some people had noticeable improvements in pain, sleep and anxiety.Most ways of taking CBD products work, but vaping is not recommended because it contains chemical products that can cause unknown risks for inflammatory arthritis.
CBD works by interacting with receptors in the brain and immune system that influence pain and inflammation in the body. It affects how these receptors respond to the signals they receive, helping decrease inflammation and pain. CBD can also help to reduce the symptoms of other conditions such as anxiety and depression, which are often associated with arthritis. Consider consulting a healthcare professional first to make sure you get the right product for you with safe and effective ingredients such as products from SmartShop Planet and Diamond CBD.
Cancer-related symptoms
More studies are in the process of investigating the benefits of CBD for cancer-related symptoms. Still, some studies have already found evidence that CBD helped reduce pain, nausea and vomiting caused by cancer treatment. The dose may vary, and in some cases, THC capsules were used in pain therapy.
Some studies and reviews showed CBD's input in:
- Pancreatic cancer (slowing down tumour growth, reducing tumour invasion)
- Colon cancer (restrains the spread of cancer cells in the body)
- Breast cancer (significantly reduced breast cancer cells)
CBD might be used for cancer prevention, but that's something to be proven in the future because it's still not clear what doses are recommended, the frequency of use and the general control of its administration.
Muscle and joint pain
Muscle and joint pain usually develops in the cartilages, bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles. The difference between this type of pain and arthritis is that muscle and joint pain can be reversible and easily reduced with the proper treatment.
The latest study on CBD's effects on joint pain states that CBD may help with targeting the cells that aggravate the inflammation caused by the joints. It also allows for calcium mobilisation in the bones, even in a small percentage. Spray or tincture is the most useful because it can be absorbed directly into the bloodstream, making effects occur within 15 to 45 minutes.)
Other uses of CBD
Besides relieving physical pain, CBD can also have ameliorating effects on mental health, for example:
- Positive results in anxiety disorders (decrease in social anxiety symptoms after administration)
- Mood stabilisation some studies state that CBD might be beneficial in depression symptoms)
- Psychosis (one study revealed that CBD decreased visual hallucinations)
- Epilepsy and seizures (there is one CBD medication approved for using it in childhood seizures, like Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome)
- Sleep (it is stated that CBD plays an important role in the circadian rhythm, therefore improving the sleep quality)
- Addictions
Side effects
Your doctor should approve CBD usage if you consider taking it for any pain. Still, suppose you want to try it yourself, you should know that there are some side effects (tiredness, appetite loss, mood swings) but nothing severe (powerful impact if mixed with alcohol or other drugs). Although, a recent review noted that most of the participants in the studies conducted usually tolerated the minimal side effects of CBD.
There's still little evidence that CBD's full potential is used as a treatment for everything. Luckily, many exciting theories are evaluated and tested as you read, and we couldn't be happier because until now, the research has been slightly limited.
