Your immune system normally sends out cells to fight an infection or heal an injury. Chronic inflammation occurs when the immune system is over-stimulated all the time. Chronic inflammation is present in 3 in every 5 adults in the world and is considered the greatest threat to human health by the World Health Organisation. As our artificial lifestyles, poor eating habits, and job demands increase the spread of chronic inflammation, they also increase the pressing need for methods of pain relief.
Most of the western world have been using opiates as the basis of their pain relief regimes for the past 75 years; this mentality, along with the proliferation of modern pharmaceuticals since the explosion of oxycontin have led to the U.S. government declaring pain-killer medicinal use to be an ‘epidemic’ in 2019. Sweden has suffered from the opposite, but all too usual extreme over-reaction. A virtual absence of any effective pain-relief pharmaceuticals and a ban on over-the-counter pain-killers have paradoxically left Sweden almost bereft of pain relief solutions for a population that is overwhelmed by a need for them!
However, knowing the risks of legal, prescribed drugs, it can be said with great certainty that CBD will do you no harm whatsoever.
Therefore, if looking for pain-relief, particularly of a chronic or repetitive nature, you are essentially left to make a choice of:
- A drug that may kill you or lead to opiate addiction with all the resultant destruction to your life, relationships and community. It might help your pain but it might not.
- CBD which does no harm at all with no risk and may bring you all manner of benefits.
I believe this is what is called in Swedish ‘self klart’, a simple choice to make. The benefits of CBD in fighting pain include:
- Reducing inflammation
- Relieving the common side effects of pain
- Promoting nerve cell health
- Activating pain receptors in the spinal cord and brain
Arthritis-Related Pain
Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia is a common condition (affecting up to 2% of the population) that includes chronic pain, fatigue, insomnia, depression and poor concentration. There is no cure for fibromyalgia and most of the currently available pharmaceutical drugs are not very effective. The benefits of using CBD oil for fibromyalgia include: relieving chronic pain, improving sleep quality, and alleviating many of the side effects of the disease such as anxiety and depression.
Migraines
Over 1.2 million Swedes are regular sufferers of migraines, by far the vast majority of this number are women. Roughly 75% of adults in Sweden suffer headaches, with over 30% reporting suffering at least 1 migraine a year. There is no cure for migraines. They seemed to be caused by a combination of neurovascular inflammation and hypersensitivity – two areas where CBD has been shown to have vastly beneficial effects. As well, the majority of study has involved the so-called ‘trigger points‘ that are key pre-cursors of migraines. Pharmaceutical medicines – particularly migraine and headache medication — have been found to be one of the key triggers. Couple this with stress, anxiety, sleep loss, pain and hormonal changes as other key trigger points and you can see how CBD would seem to be the perfect foe to battle the growing migraine surge.
Several studies that suggest CBD is a promising candidate for migraine treatment. CBD has been shown to inhibit the release of serotonin from platelets in the brain, block inflammation in the brain, and directly inhibit pain signals.
In general, CBD can prevent vascular spasms in the brain due to its antispasmodic effects and ability to upregulate GABA. GABA is responsible for inhibiting glutamate, which is associated with muscle spasms in the arteries supplying the brain. These spasms are thought to contribute to migraine formation.
Muscle Pain & Recovery
A recent EU study on back pain and its economic cost determined that lower back pain amongst the citizens of Sweden costs each and every one of us roughly 1,130kr a day. I repeat, each and every Swede costs the state roughly 1,130kr a day due to lower back pain!! That’s just the cost to the state. That is just the lower back. When muscle and joint pain and inflammation are added into the mix (knees, shoulders, ankles) the cost rises into the several thousand kronar per Swede. The costs both in time and money are enormous; and the cascading effect of psychosomatic symptoms that follow pain are to numerous to list.
The benefits of using CBD oil for muscle pain include:
- Relaxes tight muscle fibres
- Blocks the transmission of pain travelling from the muscles to the brain
- Relieves muscle inflammation
- Improves sleep quality and recovery
- Increases the differentiation of satellite cells in muscles
- Promotes protein synthesis by lowering cortisol levels
The cost of pain and soreness — whether it be from a migraine of rarer occurrence or a chronic joint inflammation, can be immeasurable. The time and money, energy and drive that are sacrificed cannot be replaced. The resulting cascade of mental and physical effects can be debilitating and irreversible, and oftentimes the ‘cures’ and ‘treatments’ are as harmful as the underlying cause. The Endocannabinoid System is our body’s balance scale, it is there to soothe our aches and calm our hypersensitivity. The interaction of CBD and our ECS is quite literally the key and the lock to balance our internal systems with the external world.
CBD - SOOTHING SWEDEN
