Article’s Takeaways:

• Both research and anecdotal reports show CBD oil can help safely help with all forms of pain whether it’s Neuropathic, Nociceptive, or Central Pain.  
• In addition, CBD can help with several conditions because it boosts the endocannabinoid system which is a natural protection and regulatory system vital to our health.
• The best CBD for pain will depend on a number of factors unique to you: your comfort level, desire for a precise dose, taste, and ease of use.
• There is no catch-all CBD dosage for pain, and again it will depend on factors unique to you: severity of pain and your weight.
• Have a question about CBD you couldn’t find here? Then you want to check out “Every Question You Have About CBD Answered: Questions 1-10 and Questions 11-20.

If you’ve never heard about taking CBD for pain relief before, or just have, then you’re in for a treat. Within just a few years, CBD and hemp-based products have soared through the mass confusion and fought against comparisons to marijuana. It’s now in the ears of every doctor and on the tip of all of your neighbors’ tongues.

In this article, we will discuss how to use CBD oil for pain, which CBD is best for it, how much you can take, and other ways CBD can improve your health.

 

What is CBD oil?

CBD oil is derived from legal varieties of the cannabis plant, known as industrial hemp. To meet this definition, hemp plants are required to contain near non-existent levels of THC (0.03% or less). THC is the phytocannabinoid that gives marijuana varieties their psychoactive effects or high.

Fortunately, there are still hundreds of non-psychoactive phytocannabinoids in hemp plants — such as CBD —  which produce a number of therapeutic effects that benefit our health.

 

CBD & Hemp’s Legality — The law only cares about THC because it’s solely responsible for the high, and without it, hemp and its derivatives are legal in all 50 states and around much of the world.

 

Conditions Hemp CBD Can Help With:

While they can’t get you high, non-psychoactive phytocannabinoids can significantly help with a boatload of medical conditions.  

• General
• Addiction
• Anxiety
• Appetite
• Arthritis
• Cancer
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Epilepsy and Seizures
• Fibromyalgia
• Inflammation
• Neurodegeneration (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntington's)
• Osteoporosis/Bone Health
• Pain
• PTSD
• Sleep Disorders
• Stress

This all sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But as more research pours in, these reports of it helping with an endless road of diseases are being confirmed. Even better, when you learn the science behind how CBD oil works, it makes complete sense how this product is helping so many.

 

Why Cannabinoids Are Essential to Staying Healthy  

So why are phytocannabinoids helping us so significantly? Well, they help because they closely mimic cannabinoids we produce called endocannabinoids.

Our brains produce their own cannabinoids that act as specialized neurotransmitters and activate different receptors throughout the body. When these receptors are activated, they release signals that ensure that both physiological and cognitive processes in the body are functioning as they should; and it rebalances them if they aren’t.

These receptors exist on a cellular level, and this endocannabinoid system has been helping organism from humans to birds to reptiles maintain homeostasis. Homeostasis is the mechanism an organism uses to maintain and maximize their chances of survival in their environment from microscopic threats to changes in temperature.

 

How CBD Oil Works

When we are deficient in endocannabinoids our health weakens in every way. CBD oil allows endocannabinoids levels to build back up by temporarily inhibiting FAAH enzymes in a safe manner. As well, the phytocannabinoids and terpenes will help directly activate the restorative and regulatory receptors themselves.

 

Full Spectrum Hemp CBD Oil for Pain

While CBD is the phytocannabinoid with the most benefits and gives the oil its name, don’t forget about the other phytocannabinoids. Especially, because without them, CBD oil is 4x less effective. The other cannabinoids bring along some unique properties expanding the oils’ therapeutic range. As well, they will bring along ones that CBD has, reinforcing the properties. Last, and most crucial they promote the entourage effect.   

The entourage effect is what makes full-spectrum CBD oil 4x more effective than CBD isolate. Certain cannabinoids allow the others — like CBD — to more easily pass the blood-brain barrier so they can be absorbed into the bloodstream. For more information about full-spectrum CBD oil vs CBD isolate click here.

 

How CBD Oil Helps With Pain

CBD oil pain fighting ability is multifaceted and has been shown to help with pain regardless of the source. CBD oil targets the source of pain by reducing inflammation and by blocking signals that produce hypersensitivity to pain.

It’s important to remember that CBD oil will most likely not completely remove pain like an opioid, but this avoids serious issues.

Unlike opioids and other pain medications CBD won’t:

• Make you feel foggy or lethargic
• Won’t dull your senses
• Won’t make you physically dependent/addicted
• It will not completely remove pain increasing chances of reinjury
• General side effects such as nausea are much less common

We are in an opioid crisis and CBD may just be the key to solving it because not only does it provide safer pain relief, but it can help break addictions to opioids and other drugs.

Instead, CBD makes pain manageable and gives many the ability to function throughout their day without having the pain constantly hinder their lives. You will still be able to tell there is pain, but it’s dulled, not agitating, and it’s much easier to ignore the pain.

 

Nociceptive Pain

Known better as inflammatory pain, nociceptive pain is mainly caused by an injury that triggers the inflammatory processes to repair the damage — the byproduct of this is unfortunately pain. Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin and ibuprofen are commonly used to control this pain but can have dangerous effects on the kidneys with long-term use.

Degenerative joint diseases are a classic example of nociceptive pain but are harder to manage with current medication leaving many in debilitating pain.

There is compelling evidence that the ECS plays a critical role in the pathophysiology of nociceptive pain. When studying cannabinoids and their role in osteoarthritis, we discovered that they have antinociceptive effects (reduces sensitivity from inflammation to pain).

CBD oil combats nociceptive pain in multiple ways. First, it can dampen overactive pain signals at the site of the injury and again when they enter the brain. Second, CBD will help ensure macrophage 1 cells that cause inflammation signal for macrophage 2 cells to remove them — when they don’t signal, “good” inflammation becomes “bad”.

 

Neuropathic pain

Unlike nociceptive pain, the neuropathic pain is unmanageable by common NSAIDs.  

There are many reasons we experience neuropathic pain: injury resulting in damaged nerve cells, cells breaking down (multiple sclerosis), chemotherapy, diabetes, and HIV — this is only a few.

The simplest explanation for neuropathic pain is saying that cells release neurotransmitters that signal there is pain but damaged nerves can modulate the severity of these signals. Over time, the spinal cord’s interpretation of pain signals is rearranged. You start to feel pain in absence of external stimulation.

Luckily for us, there is mounting research showing cannabinoids can help with all the conditions listed above. Not only by reducing the intensity of pain signals at different points, but also by attaching to serotonin receptors that reduce anxiety and depression.

We are finding that mental health plays an inescapable role in pain, especially when nociceptive and neuropathic turn into chronic pain.

 

Chronic pain

People living with chronic pain are currently living in a nightmarish situation — in more ways than one.

First, chronic pain is physical and mental — chronic pain wears down our mental health to the point that it changes our brain activity. We come to expect the pain, and now we are mentally hypersensitive to it not just physically. This, in turn, makes us even more physically hypersensitive to pain. This circular effect is a nightmare, but this isn’t the only reason chronic pain is hell.

A few years ago, you’d go to the doctor and get thrown an opioid. But because of the epidemic, it’s causing, doctors have heavily restricted handing out prescriptions for them without having something new to replace it.

Enter CBD whose providing light to those currently fighting their chronic pain in the dark. Chronic pain affects more than 100 million Americans and 1.5 billion worldwide.

 

How to Take CBD Oil for Pain

All CBD products help will help with pain, but the best for you depends on what you’re looking for.

 

Which CBD Product is Best for Pain?

Sublingual

Sublingual use or under the tongue is how CBD products first started and remain one, if not the most popular method. Taking CBD sublingual has a lot of benefits; it’s the second fastest way to feel the effects of CBD after vaping — you’ll feel it working within 10-15 minutes.

As well, it gives you the most control over your dose. No other method makes it so easy to create dosages at whatever precise amount you want.

The only negative with the oil is the flavor which many complain about it. This is mostly due to companies using raw hemp extract which leaves harmless but non-beneficial plant material like chlorophyll and sugars. We distillate our CBD oil because it removes the non-beneficial material that creates a very bitter taste and dilutes the product — there still some flavor but most don’t mind it.

Capsules

It's common to see CBD capsules around 15 mg so if you want to a higher dosage, you cannot go lower than 30 mg. As well, it’s too difficult to break the capsules apart to create a lower dosage.

Fortunately, this dosage works for most people — 15 mg works for both minor and chronic issues, and jumping up to 30 mg isn’t an issue for most. The real negative of capsules is that they will have to be digested and metabolized by the liver which means it can take an hour before you feel the CBD working. The big plus, however, is there is no flavor whatsoever, and they are easy and inconspicuous to take.    

Topical

Topicals are great for dealing with localized pain directly. One study published in the European Journal of Pain found that when a CBD topical was applied for four days, both inflammation and pain significantly dropped. Even better it did this without causing any side effects.

Ingesting/Edibles

Edibles are great and without a doubt the most inconspicuous way to take CBD. Like capsules, they will need to be digested so don’t expect it to kick in for up to an hour. Taking them on an empty stomach will help with the rate they’re absorbed at, however. You can buy CBD edibles or just make them yourself by dropping the oil in it. This way you can dose at your preferred amount — edibles have notoriously wonky doses.

 

Dosage

How much CBD oil for pain that you will need, will depend on a few factors: severity of pain, the source of pain, and your weight. As well, body chemistry may create some discrepancies in dosage, but not to a significant degree in full spectrum CBD oil, as it does in CBD isolate.

15mg once or twice a day is the most common CBD dosage, and this is due to it working the best for the most people and their conditions— insomnia requires a higher than normal dose, but that’s it.  

If you’re interested in finding the best dose for you, we recommend our oil, and you can use our CBD calculator that does all the work for you.

 

Suggested Dose	Pounds	Kilograms
Low	0.022mg/b	0.05mg/kg
Average	0.068mg/lb	0.15mg/kg
Strong	0.136mg/lb	0.50mg/kg

 

Side effects

CBD side effects are rather mild, especially when compared to many of the drugs it can replace. Often the biggest side effect is it doesn’t work for a rare few. As well, it may make some tired and slight nausea, but these are rare.

There is some concern that CBD interacts with drugs metabolized in the liver in the same vein that grapefruit does. Both CBD and grapefruit can temporarily deactivate CYP enzymes which breakdown many pharmaceuticals in the liver.

With low and normal dosages, there is not enough CBD for it to cause an issue. But because of body chemistry, a rare few may see some side effects with low dosages. If your doctor advises against grapefruit, ask them about CBD before using because CBD is a stronger inhibitor.

You can read more about CBD interaction with other medication here.  

For more information on CBD Oil, click here!