Can CBD become the next best thing for pain management?
When I was a child, I used to always run on my toes anywhere and everywhere. I was so active and impatient that walking was too conventional for my level of energy. And as any hyperactive child, I used to fall a lot. I still have scars on my knees from falling so much as a child. Back then, people used to say to me that the best remedy for a scratch or a bruise when you are playing outside and cannot come home immediately to wash the wound is a plantain leaf. They said it’s as good as a plaster. It was believed that if you get a plantain leaf and put it against the wound, it would heal it sooner due to its magical antiseptic and healing effect. It would also prevent you from catching any bacteria, especially if it’s bleeding. Actually, it was a little bit grosser than that: because the plants were most likely dirty from all the dust, you were supposed to spit a bit of saliva on it and then apply it to the skin (as if saliva would miraculously make a dusty leaf clean).
It’s been at least twenty years since the last time I applied my last plantain leaf to a wound, thinking it would help me heal. As silly as it sounds, I still often choose to either go for natural remedies for when I have a health-related problem, or I don’t use anything at all. I often let my body fight physical discomfort or distress when I have a headache, flu, or a stomachache. For some reason, I strongly associate chemicals with something unnecessary and dangerous to mess around with, and many side effects listed on all medications don’t make me any more confident in their usefulness.
So having this mindset about traditional, natural remedies vs. chemical drugs always makes me twice as interested in new natural ways that can be useful for one’s health and wellness. Not long ago, I came across a whole new concept about cannabidiol infused products that come in dozens of forms: from edible sweets to oils, capsules, creams, inhalers, and many more. Most of the articles that I had seen on the Internet had pictures of a cannabis plant, which made me a bit alerted, even though medical marijuana has been a thing for many years. I’ve decided to take upon a bit of reading and came across a lot of very peculiar findings. In this article, I will try to summarize what I’ve learned from my research and translate the scientific language to English.
CBD vs. THC
First of all, let’s define what cannabidiol is. The cannabis plant is mostly known for drugs. However, the leaves of this plant have hundreds of different compounds, some of which are very rich in soothing, healing, and calming effects. The compound that gives one a high is called tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. There is a large variety of different products that can get you high — THC infused food, inhalers, even gum, not to mention the use of marijuana itself in food, or rolled up into joints, and smoked as a cigarette. Cannabidiol, on the other hand, is the name of one of the compounds that are found in a cannabis plant that does not have any psychoactive properties as opposed to THC.
Nonetheless, it has been proven to be a very unique and useful element for a lot of different health and wellness problems, such as depression, anxiety, and pain relief. It is extracted from cannabis leaves in the form of oil and is used on its own or added to infuse different products, such as creams, food, beverages, capsules, and many more. Most CBD oil comes from industrial hemp due to a higher CBD concentration (as opposed to traditional marijuana used for the production of drugs, that has a higher percentage of THC).
To examine how CBD can be used in different types of health and wellness distress, I’ve decided to narrow down my research to the subject of pain relief as an example. I will first backtrack to the trends in pain relief methods that humanity has been studying for centuries and where the research and historical circumstances led to pain relief concept. In the second part of the article, I will focus on modern science and the use of CBD with regards to pain relief in cases of specific types of pain, such as arthritis, pain caused by cancer processes, chronic pain, and migraines.
A detour to the history of pain management
Feeling of pain is as essential as it is devastating to our existence. On one hand, if we think about it, pain is always a signal of something being off. It hurts when we touch a hot stove, when we break a bone, when we have gastritis, and most of the other diseases, injuries, or problems with our inner organs in general. It is always the most obvious indicator that we need to take care of ourselves in one way or another, and the hurting sensation in a particular part of our body is always a clue of what it is we need to pay attention to. It is quite challenging to imagine how one would survive even a few years of life without having pain as alerts what not to do or what to take care of.
On the other hand, depending on the intensity, type, or duration of pain, whether it is one sharp impulse or one that reoccurs for days, weeks, or even years, can be truly awful. More often than not, it can have a severe impact on the quality of our lives. Unfortunately, it has always been the struggle that we as humankind face from day one and will most likely continue to experience, as it is part of our nature. For this reason, pain relief has been studied for hundreds of years, and scientists continue to discover and explore more and better types of remedies every day.
In the fifteenth century, opium was the most common pain relief. Around the 1800s, ether and chloroform were discovered and used as anesthesia for surgeries (although some surgeries were performed with no anesthesia at all). By taking these drugs, patients became unconscious as not to feel the pain or have any physical acknowledgment of what was going on during operation. Later the use of such a method grew into an argument of ethics, whether it is ethically appropriate to operate unconscious patients. Advocates for banning the use of such anesthesia debated that numbing a patient so he or she doesn’t feel the pain might hamper the healing process.
By the 1900s, opium was returned to medical practice accompanied by heroin as a pain relief method. The scientists didn’t have as much knowledge and research as we do nowadays, but the addictive properties of both drugs were well known. Nonetheless, medicine has turned to drugs as the primary pain relief remedy. Inevitably it led to another ethics argument of whether decreasing the suffering of a patient is worth him or her becoming vulnerable and addicted to the drugs.
Up until this point in time, most of the medical world focused on relieving acute pain, the type that occurs suddenly due to damaged tissue, for instance, during surgery or injury. However, treating chronic, recurring pain started to become of interest to scientists around the same time in the twentieth century. Medical researches, to this day, consider chronic pain as one of the most complex conditions to treat. The choice of a remedy for patients was limited, and people that didn’t wish to take drugs or couldn’t afford them turned to psychotherapy instead.
The creation of a medical field dedicated to pain specifically appeared only in the 1960s. The eighties marked a period of returning and re-encouraging the use of opioids drugs. The suggestion was made that there has been little record of addictive behavior associated with opioids hence supporting the practice of using these drugs to treat long term, non-cancer pain. For the next twenty years, opioids presence in the pharmaceutical industry flourished, which only reinforced the opioid crisis that we are faced with to this day.
Nowadays, we live in a culture where people perceive drugs not only to be a remedy for pain relief but as a necessity to live a healthy, good quality life. A question that people ask themselves, whether not being addicted to a drug, is worth living a miserable life in sufferings.
Modern painkillers and other types of pain relief
There are several analgesic drugs available on the market. Let’s try to go through some of the most common ones. The most popular and universal painkillers are the ones sold with no prescription needed, and they include:
- non-opioid analgesics such as paracetamol,
- non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen and aspirin
- low-level opioid painkillers, such as codeine (often added to paracetamol)
These types of drugs are considered less invasive or harmful (hence, why you don’t even need a prescription). They either change the way your body responds to inflammation and swelling or block a signal of pain in your brain and spinal cord. Sometimes painkillers contain more than one type of analgesic mentioned above and provide both effects. Morphine based drugs are the most powerful painkiller that you can only get with a prescription from a doctor and are only used in cases of severe pain. The principle of how it works is similar to over the counter analgesics and are only introduced for long-term pain management treatment.
If you search for pain management methods online, at the top of your search, you will most likely see articles about non-invasive, natural methods without any use of medicines. It is a clear proof of an overall trend going on in the world in recent years whereby people tend to switch to more natural means of dealing with health and wellness related problems. It is partly the reason why CBD receives so much attention among both scientists and consumers.
Types of pain and how to manage them, using CBD alone
Pain management always needs to be looked up individually because it may be very different from person to person. For two people, the same injury may cause varying levels of intensity due to high or low pain thresholds and about a million other different reasons. However, when dealing with the distress and choosing a remedy for pain management, it is always important to classify your pain first and gather an understanding of where it comes from.
In this section, we will examine how CBD may be used in different types of pain.
Chronic pain
We all have a cell signaling system called the endocannabinoid system, or ECS. It consists of ECS receptors that researches believe to have interaction with CBD elements in one’s brain and immune system. These receptors work in such a way where they receive signals from different stimuli (usually from damaged tissues) and help cells respond. This response helps to create an anti-inflammatory effect and as a result, leads to pain relief. Due to this finding, scientists conclude that it is a beneficiary approach to chronic pain management.
Arthritis pain
In my research, I came across a rather fascinating research that was held in 2016. In this study, researchers used rats with arthritis. The idea was to find out whether CBD would improve their level of pain and also to examine the amount of CBD needed to do so. They used a CBD infused gel that was applied to rats in quantities of 0.6, 3.1, 6.2, and 62.3 mg per day. Those rats that received the minimal two dosages (0.6 and 3.1) didn’t have any improvement in their pain scores. However, the ones that received 6.2 and 62.3 mg showed a significant reduction in inflammation and swelling, and overall pain in the joints. Luckily, there were no apparent side effects shown from either dosage. The conclusion that was made from the observation is that an increase of dosage after a benchmark of 6.2 mg there were no differences traced, which gives more precision in understanding the amount needed for CBD to be effective.
The scientists have every reason to assume that CBD has great potential to help people manage pain caused by arthritis. However, there is a gap in research with the same experiment being implemented on humans to claim this theory to be true.
Cancer pain
There’s also been a lot of research to examine whether CBD helps with cancer pain. A study on mice revealed results proving that CBD is capable of shrinking cancerous tumors. However, no such research has been done on humans. Most studies that involved experiments with humans with cancer were focused on pain management properties of CBS and whether or not it is effective in pain relief.
The National Cancer Institute has also named CBD effective in the reduction of chemotherapy side effects such as vomiting, fatigue, lack of appetite, and pain.
Migraine
Unfortunately, there is a gap in research of CBD having pain relief effects in cases of migraine. So far, the research is focused on pairing CBD with THC, which is also a prevalent combination in the conversation of health and wellness. The findings of a 2017 research imply that these products infused with both CBD and THC can help in acute pain and migraine reduction.
In such experiments, the percentage of THC is usually very insignificant in comparison to the consumption of marijuana as a drug. However, it is still not as tolerated by the official bodies and therefore is a bit trickier to buy legally.
What else is CBD used for?
As I’ve mentioned before, pain management is not the only condition that can benefit from CBD oil or CBD infused products. There is a lot of studies that examine its use in many other states. For the sake of giving you a fuller picture of CBD’s versatility, here is a list of other distresses or disorders, both physical and psychological that can be treated using CBD:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Acne
- Substance abuse treatment
- Diabetes prevention
- Cancer-related side effects
- Epilepsy
- Insomnia and better sleep
For further information on these distresses, please refer to other articles published on our website.
Dosage
FDA, short for Food and Drug Administration, does not curate the use of CBD, which leaves the dosage one should or should not take up to interpretation. Self-diagnosis and self-treatment when it comes to medications or any other types of treatment, is never a good idea unless you have a good understanding of the subject.
It is advised that you do research on any particular product and speak to a doctor before taking anything for the first time to understand what dosage you should be taking. CBD is no exception.
Possible side effects
Most people that have partaken in the studies of CBD tolerate the pure oil form quite well. However, as with any product, it may have some side effects that you need to be aware of.
According to recent research, the most common side effects may include
- Fatigue
- Diarrhea
- Changes in appetite
- Weight loss or weight gain
Another reason to be extra cautious and consult with a doctor about consumption of CBD is its potential incompatibility or potential for additional side effects when paired with other medications or even over-the-counter dietary supplements. It may either result in decreasing the impact of either product when consumed simultaneously or give unexpected further side effects.
Furthermore, there is a limited number of studies that examine how CBD performs and effects the body in the long term as it is a relatively new concept used and studies in the context of health and wellness.
What to consider when choosing a CBD product
It is highly advised that you take extra care in selecting a CBD infused product or oil. The industry of CBD products is undergoing exponential growth, which attracts a lot of businesses. As with any market, not all of these companies have the consumers’ best interest in mind when manufacturing their products. A lot of products that are currently on the market have a poor composition and are full of chemicals. Choose products wisely and do your research before purchasing anything to get the most of your experience with CBD.
Other considerations
Nearly all research on CBD oil in pain relief was done on adult trials. The scientists don’t recommend CBD consumption for children as there is limited research on the effects both short term and long term on a developing brain of a child.
Also, CBD is not recommended during pregnancy and breast-feeding.
Takeaway
- CBD is used in health and wellness for a variety of different conditions due to its unique anti-inflammatory and healing properties.
- It comes in numerous different forms, from oil to capsules, edibles, beverages, creams, and inhalers
- History of pain management has changed from using opium and heroin to non-invasive over the counter medicines like aspirin
- A global trend focuses on finding more natural alternatives in battling with different types of distresses which is partly why CBD research is so popular
- CBD can be used to manage arthritis pain, cancer pain, chronic pain and many more
- When choosing a CBD product, it is advised to consult with a doctor and pay close attention to the composition of any given product as to not accidentally buy a poor quality one
Verified by a Healthcare Professional
Anastasiia Myronenko
Anastasiia Myronenko is a Medical Physicist actively practicing in one of the leading cancer centers in Kyiv, Ukraine. She received her master’s degree in Medical Physics at Karazin Kharkiv National University and completed Biological Physics internship at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Germany. Anastasiia Myronenko specializes in radiation therapy and is a fellow of Ukrainian Association of Medical Physicists.
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References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis#History
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5760261/
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319475.php#benefits-for-pain
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cbd-oil-benefits#section9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4851925/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/pain/8-non-invasive-pain-relief-techniques-that-really-work
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1807061
https://www.bupa.co.uk/health-information/muscles-bones-joints/over-the-counter-painkillers
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/which-painkiller-to-use/
