The Way Cannabis Is Slowly Changing Our Understanding of Medicine

The Way Cannabis Is Slowly Changing Our Understanding of Medicine

Medicinal cannabis and CBD is helping us to get out of our comfort zone and start exploring new ways of healing. This is how we learn more about our body and its infinite capabilities. Most importantly, cannabis is giving us hope in medical situations that seem irreversible. It might not always be a cure, but it can provide the needed relief that some people desperately need.

What we know so far is not much but it’s very important, and that’s what we are going to talk about today.

First things first, what’s medicinal cannabis? Medicinal cannabis is basically the same as recreational cannabis, with only one difference – it’s usually prescribed by medical professionals to ease or help with certain medical conditions. The most common condition is chronic pain. Over 60% of prescriptions are for this purpose.

Other common reasons for a prescription are:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Epilepsy
• Multiple sclerosis
• Spasticity (tight or stiff muscles) from MS
• Muscle spasms
• Cancer
• Nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy
• Crohn’s disease
• Appetite loss
• Glaucoma
• Schizophrenia
• Eating disorders such as anorexia
• Wasting syndrome (cachexia)
• Post-traumatic stress disorder

If you want to target many of these conditions and symptoms without getting high, you can also use pure CBD. It can help you even without the THC and other cannabinoids found in cannabis. Plus, since November 2018, it’s legal in all 50 stats, provided it was derived from hemp. CBD’s popularity has skyrocketed since the Farm Bill was passed.

How does it work? Cannabis consists of cannabinoids, active chemicals that are similar to the ones our body is making while keeping us in optimal shape. According to scientists, cannabinoids are maximizing that process, making our body, in turn, to function better.

Additionally, science has proven that cannabis has the ability to deal with inflammation, reduce anxiety, and relieve pain. It can also attack and kill cancer cells and slow down the rate of growth of tumors. Other benefits include controlling nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy better than any modern medicine available.

There is also evidence that cannabis can help patients with MS to relax their muscles. What’s more, it can stimulate appetite and help with gaining weight in people who suffer from AIDS or cancer.

Medicinal cannabis is also one of the most promising treatments for people with severe seizures. Studies showed that people significantly reduced seizures after taking cannabis, which brought to the approval of Epidiolex.

Still, this is not to say that cannabis is the ultimate cure for all illnesses. It too may come with unwanted side effects.

There are many methods, but some of the most popular include smoking, inhaling through vaporizers, eating, applying it on the skin in form of oil, lotion, cream, or spray, or placing a few drops of a liquid under the tongue. They all serve the same purpose, even though each method affects your body in a different way.

For instance, the sublingual method will give you almost instant effects, while for long-lasting ones and dealing with chronic pain it’s more advisable to eat it.

As you can see, cannabis is opening new doors in modern medicine by helping us think out of the box. It still has a long way to go, especially because research is going slower than with other medical treatments, but this is also changing as the NHS is finally nudging doctors to prescribe two cannabis-based medicines, Epidiolex and Sativex, as well as other types of medicinal cannabis.