Can CBD oil help with pain relief?
Lots and lots of people turn to CBD oil for pain relief because they have not had great results with the medication that doctors hand out.
The most common types of pain relief used by the medical system may come with all manner of risks attached and side effects. For that reason alone, it is well worth exploring how to use CBD Oil for pain relief.
One of the usual over-the-counter medications people try out is the classic option, paracetamol. Many people think this is a regular, benign pill to try; however, it has more reports of side effects than nearly all other pain medications. It can cause stomach upset and is a liver toxin.
Another very popular drug of choice is from the category called NSAIDs or Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. These raise your risk of having a heart attack in the month you have taken them from anywhere between 30% and 50%! They also cause gut bleeds, and around 3,000 people a year die in the UK just from this. You may know these drugs under names like Ibuprofen, Diclofenac, and Naproxen.
To add to the issue of using NSAIDs is the simple physiological fact that if you injure yourself, the body creates an inflammatory response to help heal the damaged area. Therefore, if inflammation is a healing response to injury, why would you want to take a drug that interferes with your body fixing you?
A law of physics is that for every action, there is a reaction, and in the case of an acute injury, the body’s response is healing inflammation (the inflammation actually causes pain to stop you from doing further harm). If you suppress this acute repair response, you can expect a recurring or chronic problem and gradual degeneration of the damaged area.
Moving on to highly addictive and dangerous opiate medications, which range from co-codamol and codeine, with their awful ability to cause constipation, all the way up to fentanyl which may be more potent than street heroin. Opiates not only create drug addiction but can also affect the breathing centers of your brain stem, even leading to death!
This is not an exhaustive list, and there are many other drugs, but sadly, they all come with risks and quality of life-altering side effects.
Fortunately, if you decide to use CBD, it comes with none of the above risks. There is no risk to your health by trying it. In that respect, there is nothing to lose.
CBD oil works in harmony with your body and not only helps with pain but aids repair of damaged tissues. This means that whilst you may well find it reduces your pain, it is not a suppressant like the NSAIDs, which stops the natural healing processes. CBD encourages healing whilst also reducing pain.
If you are wondering how to use CBD oil for pain relief, there are a number of options open to you.
The most common way to take CBD Oil is to put two or three drops under your tongue, hold there for two to three minutes then swallow. This is done anywhere between one and three times a day for most people. Because CBD is non-toxic, you can freely take it throughout the day with little risk of problems.
There are a few side effects reported, but this is usually because someone has taken too much too soon. So take a couple of drops a day for a few days and gradually build up your dose until you find the sweet spot where it is helping your pain.
Whilst people use the oil across the day, there is also an amazing drinkable CBD that is fast acting and only needs to be taken once a day. It is close to 100% bioavailable (CBD oil is 10-15% bioavailable), so you only need a small amount for it to get to work quickly.
There are also CBD patches that pass through your skin and get into your bloodstream. The great thing with patches is that they last up to 36 hours, so as a convenient method of taking CBD, they are ideal.
There is also the combination method – take a water-soluble CBD in a drink first thing in the morning and then take the oil under your tongue later in the afternoon and/or evening.
Everyone has different sensitivities and responses to CBD, so please be patient. Some people get almost instant pain relief, and others take two or three months before they see a change. Of course, in the end, CBD is well worth trying because, unlike pharmaceutical preparations, you only stand to gain when trying it out.