Do you struggle with arthritis? Have you tried multiple methods of pain relief with unsatisfactory results? CBD or cannabis for arthritis relief might be just what you’re looking for!
Many arthritis sufferers find great success in using it as a natural, plant-based method of relief. Here’s what you need to know about marijuana and arthritis.
What is Arthritis?
Arthritis is a diagnosed medical condition that is mainly associated with joint pain and inflammation. It can affect just a few joints or it can affect the whole body.
Arthritis itself is a very broad term and it affects everyone differently. The most common types of arthritis are rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory arthritis.
Although each type of arthritis can have different symptoms, the linking symptom is joint pain. This pain can be lifelong and is difficult to treat.
While there are multiple medications and topicals that can be used to help alleviate arthritis pain, there’s nothing that cures it, and nothing that works 100% of the time for 100% of people.
It’s important to explore different ways to help arthritis if you suffer from this debilitating condition. Everyone should have the freedom to live a happy, active life!
Ways to Help Arthritis
Arthritis is complex and difficult to treat. While there is no cure, many people take medications on a daily basis in order to help alleviate their arthritic pain. However, many of these have nasty side effects, and can lead to further issues.
Here are some of the modern medical treatments for arthritis along with a few alternative options.
- Ibuprofen, Advil, and other over-the-counter pain relievers. Continued use of pain relievers can lead to stomach ulcers, gastritis, and other gastrointestinal upsets. Additionally, your liver function can decrease and you can develop bleeding disorders.
- Gabapentin and other prescriptions. Gabapentin is a typical prescription drug that is prescribed to help with certain types of arthritis and chronic pain. However, it can aggravate other conditions such as depression, asthma, and kidney disease. It can create new symptoms in patients without these underlying conditions. Other prescriptions cause similar issues and can easily interact with other medications or health conditions.
- Steroids. Steroids can be taken both orally and through an injection. However, both can cause worse pain, injection site irritation, and even new inflammation. Side effects can also include aggravation of other underlying medical conditions, as well.
- Physical therapy. One excellent, non-medicated way to treat arthritis is physical therapy. However, for those with insurance or insurance that isn’t full-coverage, physical therapy is expensive.
- Cannabis or CBD. So, what do you do to treat arthritis if common treatments are too expensive or dangerous? Cannabis, or medical marijuana, and CBD, which is derived from the same plant, may be effective for some arthritis sufferers!
It may be necessary to use a combination of different treatment methods to help manage your arthritis. It’s a good idea to work with a medical professional to figure out the safest and most effective options for you.
What Is Cannabis / CBD / Medical Marijuana?
Wondering what cannabis, CBD, and medical marijuana actually are? Cannabis is the name of the plant that marijuana and CBD products are derived from.
This unique plant contains more than 100 interesting chemical compounds. The most prevalent compounds are THC – the compound that is psychoactive, creating the high/stoned effect associated with marijuana – and CBD, which is non-psychoactive but has other benefits.
If you use dry herb, you’re simply using the dried flowers and leaves of the cannabis plant, which are rich in beneficial compounds. By extracting these compounds from the plant, we can create products like CBD oil, capsules, gummies, edibles, vape oil, cannabis-derived medicines, and much more!
Not all cannabis contains THC, and some plants are grown specifically to create CBD products that are not mind altering. CBD products are legal everywhere and unlike THC-containing products, you can still drive, go to work, and complete all your normal activities after using CBD.
Medical marijuana has been legalized in several countries. It’s simply cannabis that is taken for medical purposes rather than recreational purposes.
How Weed Can Help with Arthritis
As the Arthritis Society of Canada explains, cannabis can’t cure any medical conditions. However, for those who live in areas where cannabis is legal, it may be one of many ways to help arthritis.
A large 2017 medical review states that there’s substantial evidence for treating chronic pain with cannabis. Another 2019 medical review states that cannabis might be a suitable treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, but it notes that more studies need to be done.
Another study tested a cannabis-based medication, Sativex, in a small group of adults with arthritis. The patients who took this medicine reported great improvements in pain and sleep quality with minimal side effects!
There are multiple animal studies that have explored CBD’s effect on arthritis and the inflammatory pain that this condition causes, including this study on arthritic joints and this study on topical pain relief. They have all had promising results. Several studies on both humans and animals have been conducted so far, and several more are ongoing!
It’s encouraging to see the research pointing towards cannabis and CBD as a safe and effective treatment. We look forward to the day when it is widely researched and embraced by the medical profession all over the world.
When we gain a greater understanding of how medical marijuana works and how to treat conditions with it, we can use cannabis to help people more efficiently and effectively than ever before.
How Effective Is Cannabis for Treating Arthritis?
There are many people who report that cannabis has had amazing effects, while some others have experienced little relief.
It may depend on the unique chemistry of a person or it may just mean that many of those people needed to experiment with dosage until they found what worked for them.
However, there are some surveys in which the vast majority of people experienced relief from cannabis!
According to a recent survey of 600 Toronto patients, 20% of Canadians who suffer with some form of arthritis have reported using cannabis to alleviate symptoms at some point in their lifetime.
Even better, nine out of 10 of them said it was effective in managing their pain! Six in 10 reported that they were using fewer pharmaceutical drugs thanks to their medical marijuana use.
This is great news for those looking to bypass the side effects that many pharmaceuticals can cause.
Why Does Weed Help?
So, why does cannabis help some of those who use it to treat arthritis?
The answer lies in the endocannabinoid system, also known as the ECS. This system influences multiple other systems in the body, particularly the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system.
You have multiple endocannabinoid receptors throughout your body, which have the ability to influence bodily functions such as sleep, appetite, mood, and pain.
The endocannabinoid system is complex, and there’s still a lot to learn about it. However, we do know that THC and CBD interact with the system by binding to endocannabinoid receptors in the same way that your body’s natural endocannabinoids do.
The cannabis plant is the only plant known to act in this way.
The endocannabinoid system is responsible for helping to bring your body into balance, or homeostasis. When your body is in homeostasis, you will experience relief from pain, nausea, and mood problems. For some users, this effect is strong and they notice intense impacts on their pain and inflammation.
Some researchers believe that certain people may have endocannabinoid system deficiencies. Their bodies don’t produce enough of the natural endocannabinoids, so cannabinoids from the cannabis plant can greatly help by providing the signals that the body needs to bring itself back into a state of balance. This could explain why some people get so much relief from using cannabis or CBD products.
A 2008 study wanted to explore how the endocannabinoid system worked for arthritis patients, so they tested the endocannabinoids and cannabinoid receptors in the joint tissue of people with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis who were undergoing knee surgery.
They found that the arthritis patients had more endocannabinoids and receptors in their joint tissue than those without arthritis! This may suggest that medical marijuana will have a greater effect on arthritic joints than normal ones.
CBD for Arthritis
CBD, one specific cannabinoid found in cannabis, is often used in the treatment of arthritis.
When you take CBD, the CBD compounds act upon your ECS receptors and help with controlling or alleviating symptoms.
CBD products are widely available and do not contain any mind-altering or psychoactive components. This makes CBD an ideal choice for anyone who cannot get ahold of marijuana or anyone who needs pain relief without getting high.
Try Cannabis for Your Arthritis Today
Living with arthritis pain is hard, and treating it is just as difficult. However, with so many users reporting benefits from cannabis, we think it’s definitely worth a try for anyone suffering from this chronic condition.