If you or a loved one lives with a spinal cord injury (SCI), you’re probably all too familiar with the severe neuropathic pain that commonly accompanies these life-altering injuries.
Sharp, burning sensations. Stabbing pains that feel like an electric shock. Relentless muscle cramps and spasms. It’s enough to make even the toughest individuals scream for relief.
Unfortunately, the go-to prescription pain medications provided by most doctors often fail miserably. At best, they take the edge off the pain temporarily. At worst, they cause a barrage of miserable side effects without making a dent in the agony. Is there nothing that can help spinal cord injury patients find true comfort?
Well, there just might be. Exciting new research reveals that the natural relief spinal cord injury patients have been desperately searching for could be found in the cannabis plant all along!
Spinal Cord Injuries Can Cause Severe, Hard-to-Treat Neuropathic Pain
It’s bad enough that spinal cord injuries cause partial or complete loss of muscle function and sensation. But up to 68% of spinal cord injury patients also struggle with chronic neuropathic pain – one of the most severe, treatment-resistant types of pain known to medicine.
Unlike typical nociceptive pain that happens when pain receptors detect possible injury, neuropathic spinal cord pain is caused by direct damage to the somatosensory nervous system.
This alters its structure and function so neurons start misfiring spontaneously, sending excruciating pain signals even without injury or stimulation.
The result? Relentless, torturous pain signals bombarding the brain and central nervous system day and night with no relief. For many spinal cord injury patients, it makes carrying out once simple daily activities nearly impossible. Over time, lack of sleep, severe mental distress, and weakened physical health take their toll too.
Sadly, there are currently no fully effective treatments that provide substantial pain relief for these individuals. But surprisingly, new research shows individuals with spinal cord injuries may find significant comfort through cannabis’ natural pain-relieving powers.
Prescription Medications Fail to Provide Much-Needed Relief
Though opioid medications like morphine and oxycodone are still routinely prescribed for neuropathic SCI pain, clinical research shows they fall devastatingly short. On average, they only provide around 20 to 30% pain reduction – for just a fraction of the people who try them!
What’s worse, opioid side effects like drowsiness, nausea, constipation and brain fog often add insult to injury. And over longer periods, tolerance builds fast. Patients need higher and higher doses just to get minimal relief, putting them at high risk for addiction, overdose and other harms. With the US gripped in an opioid epidemic killing tens of thousands a year, there’s an urgent need for better treatment options.
Other common prescriptions like anticonvulsants, antidepressants, muscle relaxants and topical ointments also leave much to be desired. While they can softly take the edge off pain for some patients, they rarely touch more severe nerve-related aching.
Just as troublesome are their side effects like dizziness, fatigue, sleepiness, dry mouth, weight gain and loss of balance. When you’re already wheelchair-bound with lots of daily obstacles to overcome, anything that further zaps your strength, energy and coordination quickly becomes unbearable.
With pharmaceutical medicines providing such little benefit and major unwanted effects, it’s no wonder 68% of people with spinal cord injury-related neuropathic pain report inadequate relief.
Unable to carry out basic daily activities or get a decent night’s sleep, patients grow increasingly desperate to function. So where can SCI patients experiencing unrelenting neuropathic torment finally turn for real, full-body comfort? Would you believe…cannabis?
New Study Finds Cannabis Significantly Lessens Pain and Prescription Medication Use
While medical cannabis legislation sweeps across America and a growing number of other countries, cannabis remains a surprisingly under-studied treatment option for chronic neuropathic pain conditions like spinal cord injury.
Considering the herb’s powerful clinical potential, that hardly seems fair to the millions of desperate individuals frantically searching for relief.
Luckily, a pioneering 2022 study just released groundbreaking results that should spark further research into cannabis as a viable spinal cord injury treatment. The first study exploring effects on neuropathic pain intensity and prescription medication use drew some eye-opening conclusions:
- 87.9% of spinal cord injury cannabis users said it decreased their neuropathic pain over 30% – with nearly 1 in 5 reporting over 75% reduction!
- An incredible 92.3% stated cannabis helped them better deal with neuropathic symptoms like burning pains and electric shocks.
- 72% experienced notable improvements in overall well-being with cannabis use.
- 83% successfully substituted some or all prescription medications for cannabis – especially highly addictive opioids (47%).
Considering the crippling neuropathic pain and immense personal suffering almost 3 out of 4 spinal cord injury patients endure daily, these statistics should make anyone stop and take notice.
Could cannabis provide the substantial comfort and relief prescription pills fail to offer? For the first time, spinal cord injury patients now have evidence-based reason to hope so!
While research is still in early phases, self-reported input from those actually living with spinal cord injury cannot be ignored. Given cannabis’ stellar safety profile and new proof it could grant many people their lives back, further clinical trials in larger controlled settings are an obvious next step.
Growing Evidence Supports Cannabis as a Viable Treatment Option
This game-changing spinal cord research builds on prior observational studies suggesting cannabis can greatly increase quality of life after injury. Spinal cord injury patients using clinical cannabis report better sleep, less pain, reduced anxiety and depression, enhanced mood and social life, and more independence carrying out daily tasks.
The multitude of cannabis’ benefits appear to come from its interactions with the body’s endocannabinoid system – an intricate cell signaling network involved in regulating physiological processes like pain perception, memory, mood, inflammation levels, bone development, and much more.
When spinal cord injury damage causes endocannabinoid deficiencies, introducing external cannabinoids derived from the cannabis herb could help restore balance.
Preclinical studies confirm cannabis compounds called cannabinoids relieve pain and inflammation through various cellular mechanisms as they interact with endocannabinoid receptors.
The cannabis plant’s most well-known medically active components are the cannabinoids THC and CBD. But researchers believe other lesser known compounds like CBG, CBC, THCV and more also help cannabis’ therapeutic effects through synergistic interactions – what scientists call the “entourage effect”.
This phenomenon allows the herb to provide wider-ranging benefits compared to single isolated cannabinoid medications.
With rapidly evolving legal access, advanced product selection, and customizable dosing methods now available to medical patients in many regions, millions of spinal cord injury sufferers finally have hope. Cannabis could offer a life-changing alternative for those bravely battling chronic neuropathic pain daily.
For any spinal cord injury patients still searching for relief your prescription meds can’t provide, there’s never been a better time to talk to your doctor about cannabis! Cannabis may finally be the answer you’ve been waiting for all along!
