Anyone who has ever had the unlucky experience of seeing a loved one suffer from pain knows and understands just how few tools are available to doctors for pain management. The best solutions, and
about the only ones that work for pain management in cancer patients are morphine based. After long periods of use the morphine dosages need to be increased and the patients suffer from serious side-effects such as instability on their feet –– liable to cause a broken bone or
worse –– and severe mental instability.
Patients on morphine are quite literally stoned all the time. And while the experience might be more pleasant than the pain, the psychological effects can be devastating to both the patient and their
family. On one hand the patient wants and needs pain relief badly, but on the other the opioids can lead to confusion and severe hallucinations. I experienced this first-hand with my father when he
was in the active stages of dying from cancer. While the pain was under control, the drugs made him confused and it didn’t allow us to get close to him in the way we needed in last days, and weeks. We
didn’t know what else to do. The doctors told us they could not prescribe cannabis in the hospital.
Shamans and medicine men and women have known for thousands of years that the cannabis plant offers an excellent way to relieve pain. In the olden days when cannabis wasn’t that strong people would smoke the whole plant and experience all sorts of benefits, including psychotropic ones.
Thanks to the brave work and research by parents, scientists and physicians alike, people like Dr. Alan Shackelford and Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, we can now give active pain relief components to cancer
patients and those suffering from chronic pain, without giving them the high. The answer is in cannabidial, one of the molecules created by the cannabis plant. Also known as CBD (see CBD Oil UK) it is the mellower of chemicals in the marijuana plant, offering long-term pain relief without the high. It can be isolated in high concentrations giving much of the plant’s benefit to the patient without getting them stoned.
While the “high” aspect of cannabis definitely should not be discounted in part of the therapy for many people who use the plant as relief, it is questionable about how well one can work, drive –– or if you are a child –– can function on the entire cannabis plant including that with THC.
CBD, especially in the properly dosed oil format can be used in conjunction with conventional pain treatments to modulate and hopefully reduce the dose or remove the use of the addictive conventional therapy altogether.
If you’re interested in learning more about or trying CBD, check out this review of the best CBD oils.
