Does Marijuana Work For Chronic Pain Management?

 


 

Is medical marijuana superior to prescription analgesics in controlling chronic pain? Chronic pain overall constitutes the single largest usage of medical marijuana. The opioid narcotics that are commonly used to treat chronic pain, like codeine, morphine, oxycodone, and methadone, are potentially addictive. Chronic pain medications may end up leading to tolerance with a need of increasing dosage to maintain effectiveness.

A substantial number of patients find that when treating their chronic pain with medical marijuana, they are able to eliminate or significantly cut down their opiate intake. THC and the other cannabinoids inhibit the acute responses to painful stimuli. They are effective at relieving chronic pain associated with nerve damage and inflammation. There aren't any large scale research projects looking at marijuana's pain relieving efficacy. But there are plenty of case reports showing that marijuana works well for peripheral nerve pain such as the phantom limb pain occurring after an amputation - Medical Marijuana for sale.

Marijuana blocks pain pathways in the central nervous system, but through a different neurochemical signaling system than opiates. Therefore opiates and marijuana may act together as complementary analgesic medications since they are acting in two different ways. Cannabiniods in marijuana may act directly on injured tissues by reducing inflammation around damaged nerves. An example of this would be with a patient who has post-laminectomy syndrome. After a compressed nerve is surgically freed up, the result may be impressive pain relief. However, after a few months to a year one may develop scar tissue around the nerve and have persistent leg pain which then has no further surgical answer.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Should You Quit Marijuana?