Should You Take CBD Gummies For Chronic Pain?

Published 11:58 am Sunday, August 4, 2024

Chronic pain makes it very difficult for a person to lead a normal life. It makes your mood miserable, creates tension, causes stress, and negatively impacts your outlook on life. 

Sadly, it affects over 60 million people globally, and not everyone has access to the necessary medication required to deal with it. 

Many people end up relying on opioid-based medications for chronic pain. This isn’t a good thing, and we all remember the havoc wreaked by oxycontin in America and the opioid epidemic it created. 

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Since then, there’s been a rise in demand for no-opioid-based products for chronic pain. CBD, or cannabidiol, is slowly filling that space and is proven to have anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties. 

If you haven’t tried it yet, you definitely should try CBD gummies for chronic pain. It doesn’t have intoxicating properties, nor do you become dependent on it. Let’s learn about it in detail and how and why CBD gummies might be a perfect and non-addictive solution for pain-related issues. 

 

What Causes Chronic Pain? 

There could be many factors behind long-lasting chronic pain, such as certain injuries, underlying health conditions, or illnesses. It can stem from childhood accidents, muscle damage, bone injuries, or nerve damage. 

In many cases, it’s linked to severe health conditions like arthritis, neuropathy, fibromyalgia, and more. Sometimes it doesn’t go away, even after the initial injury or illness has healed or gone away. 

Psychological factors like sudden panic attacks, stress, anxiety, or depression can also act as triggers for it. Sometimes it can severely degrade the overall quality of life by becoming a hindrance to day-to-day activities like eating, playing, working, or sleeping restfully.

Why Should One Consider CBD Gummies For Chronic Pain?

Unlike opioid-based medications, the best CBD gummies to take for pain don’t have any harmful chemicals in them. CBD gummies are made of completely natural ingredients and don’t have habit-forming properties. 

You can start or stop consuming them at your will, and your body won’t desperately crave them. Even at high doses, CBD doesn’t have negative effects. A person can’t really overdose on it; the same can’t be said about other medications. 

So how does it work? Well, we humans have an endocannabinoid system in our body that is responsible for maintaining a state of balance. It does so by controlling various physiological responses like our anxiety levels, inflammation, pain perception, memory, stress response, and more. 

The endocannabinoid system has two major receptors that interact with our body’s internal cannabinoids, anandamide and 2-AG, to maintain homeostasis. 

So when we consume CBD additionally, this process becomes even more efficient, as, being a cannabinoid, CBD also interacts with these receptors and makes the functioning of the endocannabinoid system even better. 

Another factor is that gummies offer a precise dosing method, as each gummy comes with exact concentration levels of CBD. So you can easily manage the dosage and spread it out throughout the day as per your requirements. 

The only drawback of gummies is that they take around an hour and two to work, whereas CBD oils only take a few minutes. Plus, gummies come in a variety of delicious fruity flavors. 

A 2022 systematic review of over 2300 scientific articles on CBD concluded that it’s an excellent alternative to opioid-based pain medications for dealing with chronic pain issues, and it’s completely non-intoxicating in nature. 

How To Take CBD Gummies For Pain?

CBD gummies have a slow onset time and low bioavailability because they first pass through our body’s digestive tract before getting metabolized and mixed in the bloodstream. So be mindful of the time and plan your dosage accordingly. 

The overall onset time and intensity of effects can differ from person to person based on their medication history, metabolism, body chemistry, weight, tolerance level, and more. If you are a beginner, then it’s best to start with a low dose, observe the effects for a few days, and then increase or decrease the dosage accordingly. 

If you feel nauseated, then it’s best to take gummies with food, even if the food is high in fat content. Why? Studies have shown that taking CBD with fatty foods results in better absorption and increases its concentration in the body by four times. 

Do CBD Gummies For Pain Have Side Effects? 

In most cases, CBD is generally well tolerated and doesn’t have any severe side effects. But some people might experience slight discomfort initially. This can include slight drowsiness, fatigue, dehydration, nausea, and headaches. 

What matters is that the intensity of these effects is not severe enough to require serious medical attention and will mostly go away within a few hours. Exceptionally, if they persist over a day, then it’s an indication for reducing the dosage or stopping the consumption of CBD gummies altogether for a few days. 

Some people have sensitivity to certain components of gummies, like slight THC levels in full-spectrum options. In such cases, it’s better to stick with broad-spectrum gummies, as they don’t have any THC in them and still produce an entourage effect for the user. 

Also, it’s recommended to increase your water intake when including gummies in your wellness journey, as CBD has a tendency to cause slight dehydration. 

The Key Note

In a nutshell, yes, you should take CBD gummies for pain. Gummies are much safer than general prescription pain medications and opioid-based solutions. 

They are made with completely natural and non-dependency-causing ingredients, so you can stop or continue with them at your will. CBD has strong pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties, as observed in many scientific studies. 

It can provide relief from different types of pain, including arthritis pain, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis pain, and more. One major trigger behind chronic pain is anxiety, stress, and mood issues. CBD has both anxiolytic and calming effects, which can keep anxiety and stress in check, effectively suppressing psychological pain triggers. 

Remember that CBD gummies are not magic pills and won’t take away your pain overnight. You’ll need to consume them regularly with discipline and give them some time to work their charm. 

Other than gummies, you should include physiotherapy, a clean diet, regular exercise, and mindful activities to further keep your chronic pain in check. Finally, be mindful of where you buy your CBD gummies from. Try to opt for well-tested and high-quality brands like Colorado Botanicals, which provides late lab reports.