Just in America, 1.3 million people suffer from the chronic pain of rheumatoid arthritis. A disease that affects everyone differently, and unfortunately has no cure. It causes inflammation in your joints, triggering long-lasting and severe pain that can completely debilitate you, making the smallest chore a painful hassle.
There are ways to deal with this painful disease, many of which leave people with addictions, untreated pain and further deteriorating conditions. Now that more information and research has been done on Cannabidiol (CBD), the people in and out of medical community are finding that it can be a safer alternative, and just as effective.
What Is Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that attacks your joints. Your joints are coated in a lubricant called synovium that helps you move easily and pain-free. RA will make your synovium thicker, making movement painful and harder to do.
Research has found out that patients with RA are more vulnerable to inflammation than any other type of arthritis. If you try to just live through your pain without getting it treated, the inflammation can make you lose cartilage in your bones.
Cartilage is the connective tissue that acts as a cushion in your joints, letting you move without pain like you are supposed to. Damage to these cells causes pain and stiffness in joints and is unfortunately irreversible.
Symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Fatigue
- Injuries that don’t seem to heal
- Numbness or a tingling sensation in your hands or feet
- Lung disease
- Locked joints
- Stiffness in the mornings
- Gastrointestinal issues
What Are Pain Management Options?
Rheumatoid Arthritis is a progressive disease, meaning it only gets worse over time. This means that you must take more medication just to get by as the disease ages in your body. There are tons of different ways to try to cope with your illness, but each one comes with its own unique side-effect.
Pain Management Options for RA
- Non-steroid anti-inflammatory medications
- Risks including heart attack, nausea, stroke and intestinal bleeding
- Acetaminophen
- For mild cases with mild risks, unless you have a sensitive or diseased liver.
- Corticosteroids (Or just steroids)
- For extreme cases, can cause bone thinning, high blood pressure and raises risk to infection
- Cannabidiol (CBD or Hemp Oil)
- For all types of intensities, side effects include dry mouth, dizziness, fatigue, and low blood pressure
Why Choose CBD for Rheumatoid Arthritis?
THC gets most of the stage when we talk about cannabis, but CBD has really gained some attention with its medicinal properties that are just as impressive. CBD doesn’t get you “high”, it lacks any psychoactive properties, but it does have some amazing potential benefits.
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a chemical extracted from the marijuana plant. It communicates with a system in our body called the endocannabinoid system (ECS). This system regulates your body, which means it controls things like what temperature you are, how much acid is in your blood, and even regulating the synovium.
CBD has also shown its communication with the immune system, reducing the inflammation accompanied with autoimmune diseases. It’s interaction with your nervous system and your ECS shows great promise in treating chronic pain.
In the first ever study between CBD medication and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers gave out placebos and a medication to eligible candidates. After just five weeks of receiving a medicinal spray every morning, the activity of arthritis decreased significantly.
In a further study done on the endocannabinoid system and RA, hemp oil has shown significant progress in decreasing inflammation. The patients they tested were moving their joints with less effort and they had very low numbers on the pain scale.
Since CBD focuses on your endocannabinoid system, it helps regulate the lubrication in your joints. This helps decrease that stiffness in your joints that make everything so hard to do. It also helps tell your immune system to stop attacking you. Your body sends out fake threats constantly which is what is the cause of all your pain. CBD comes in and tells your body to cut it out so you can eat your cereal without it being a 9 on the pain scale.
While studying the effects of marijuana and pain, researchers did a study on cancer patients. In many of the patients, they reported having no pain or nausea and their inflammation had decreased. They found that the natural remedy aided in moderate to severe pain just as well as the more addictive medications.
If you compare the health benefits of hemp oils and the symptoms of RA, you’ll notice how perfectly they match. Not only does CBD help decrease inflammation, but it also helps suppress the pain so you can live your life normally like you’ve always wanted.
The public was once wary of using hemp oil for arthritis because of the lack of research. Luckily, with new studies constantly coming to light, the community has shifted and is more than ever in support of ending the prohibition of medical cannabis. Many have grown tired of the addictive medications with the extreme side effects and are turning to a more natural and less detrimental alternative.