Pain Relief Naturally

Everyone experiences pain. It is a constant companion to life and is important to our survival as pain is usually a warning that something is going terribly wrong. As such pain cries out for relief, treatment depends on what type of pain is being felt.

Nociceptive pain is usually caused by damage to the body—burns, bruises, fractures, infections, and so on. Visceral pain is also a type of nociceptive pain but involves internal organs.

When the body experiences trauma, nerve cell endings called nociceptors become agitated and transmit signals to the brain which responds with the feeling of pain. As the tissue recovers from the injury the pain lessens and eventually goes away. Opioids such as Vicodin and Norco are a common form of treatment for nociceptive pain.

Neuropathic pain results from damage to or problems associated with the peripheral or central nervous system and can occur following viral infection, trauma, medications, cancers or metabolic problems. Neuropathic pain may last for years and in some patients never cease.

Peripheral neuropathy, commonly associated with diabetes, is a common example of neuropathic pain. Other examples are an amputee’s phantom pain, pain following surgeries and pain resulting from herpes or shingles. Treatment involves a wide spectrum of medications, surgeries and implants, but only about half of all neuropathic pain patients achieve even partial relief.

The serious and even life-threatening consequences of opioids and the inability of much of anything else to successfully treat neuropathic pain requires a more effective and less debilitating remedy for both nociceptive and neuropathic pain. Cannabis is just such a remedy.

Five-thousand-year-old manuscripts written by Chinese physicians document the ancient use of cannabis for treating pain. Until 75 years ago, cannabis was used for pain relief around the world and was found in medicine cabinets throughout the United States.

Whether it is pain with neuropathic origins such as diabetes or nociceptive pain from a broken bone, the cannabinoids found in cannabis can effectively and safely ameliorate the pain. It does this through a variety of mechanisms, many of which, due to the difficulty of conducting cannabinoid research, are not fully understood.

One of the major ways cannabis can treat pain is through its powerful anti-inflammatory properties. Inflammation is at the root of much pain and by reducing inflammation, cannabis reduces pain

Opioids do not alleviate pain—they suppress the perception of pain. By reducing inflammation, cannabis gets to the root of the pain rather than just treating the symptoms.

Recent research has found another intriguing mechanism of how the cannabinoids found in cannabis provide pain relief. In his ground breaking paper “Harm Reduction – The Cannabis Paradox (Harm Reduction Journal, September 2005) Dr. Robert Melamede discussed research showing that cannabinoids “seem to function in a pathway parallel to the opioid pathway and are thought to exert anti-nociceptic activity at the level of the spinal cord and the brain.”

The ability of cannabinoids to mitigate pain is supported by research demonstrating an increase in the number of surface CB1 receptors in rats following nerve damage. It is the CB1 receptors that are responsible for many of the analgesic effects resulting from cannabis ingestion.

Cannabis can help reduce and even eliminate pain in many other ways and the only significant side-effect of cannabis intake is that it makes the person taking it feel better. However, feeling better from using cannabis is labeled a negative and debilitating side effect by law enforcement, pharmaceutical company executives, alcohol purveyors and Puritans.

People who have pain and are taking manufactured pharmaceuticals will find that with easy and affordable access to sufficient quantities of cannabis they can significantly reduce, if not totally eliminate, their use of these debilitating prescription painkillers, anti-psychotics and other medications used to mitigate pain.

Like Dr. McCoy from countless Star Trek episodes exclaiming what “barbarians” doctors were in the past, doctors in the not-too-distant future will also exclaim what “barbarians” doctors were in the 20th century for only providing manufactured pharmaceuticals for the treatment of pain and refusing to provide safe and effective cannabis.

Receive Lanny’s free marijuana email newsletter by sending your email address to lanny@marijuananews.org.