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Does CBD Help with Pain After Surgery? – Cannabidiol As Post-Surgery Pain Treatment

For people who need surgery to help cure an illness, make a necessary correction or get some much-needed relief, recovering from those surgeries can often be tricky.

Aside from the challenge of reduced mobility during the healing process, managing pain is frequently an obstacle for invasive or necessary surgeries to address a severe problem.

Tradition Pain Relief Options

Many patients run into the reality that postoperative pain is usually managed with over-the-counter pain relievers such as Tylenol and, if necessary, one of the various opioid medications prescribed by the patient’s doctor that are much more powerful than any other over-the-counter medicine.

Unfortunately, these options have their downsides and limitations.

Medicine that can be purchased without a prescription is only somewhat effective at relieving severe pain and is often simply not enough on its own.

Opioids, on the other hand, are so potent that they can lead to addiction if doses and recovery aren’t managed properly.

Maybe you’ve seen news reports about the opioid addiction problem in the United States; post-surgery prescriptions are one of the ways people can get a hold of these addicting drugs and end up abusing them even after they have fully recovered.

The prospect of getting hooked on prescription painkillers can frankly be a little terrifying.

For that reason, many patients are interested in pain management that doesn’t involve the traditional means that doctors usually recommend.

Using medical marijuana is an alternative that is becoming more widely accepted due in part to its expanding legal status across the United States.

However, because many states still have not made it fully legal it is difficult or costly for many patients to access it.

Using marijuana also does come with downsides.

An important one is that being high means driving a car or doing other activities that require focus and attention won’t be safe or even possible.

For patients recovering from surgery, simply seeking pain relief, Cannabidiol, or CBD, could be the answer.

CBD As A New Alternative

Because of the risks involved with using opioids to treat pain, CBD has emerged in the last 20 years as an attractive alternative for those that would instead not use marijuana.

CBD is derived from cannabis plants, the same family that produces marijuana but rather than affect the brain the way that marijuana does, it instead only interacts with the nervous system to create a calming effect.

CBD does not produce a high and still allows patients to reap the benefits during post-surgery recovery.

In addition to pain relief, CBD’s positive effects also include reducing inflammation, which is a significant advantage in the healing process.

In addition, CBD enjoys greater legal status across the country than medical marijuana, with many of the more restrictive states at least allowing for CBD products that have FDA approval.

Granted, FDA approval for CBD products is particularly narrow at the time of this writing but as marijuana becomes more widely legal and available so too will CBD.

With time and research more products will inevitably gain approval and reach the people who are interested in giving them a try.

Like other medicines there is a variety of methods to consume CBD, including:

Oil drops that are typically taken orally, sometimes under the tongue
In edible forms such as gummies or even prepared in normal food items
Inhaling it as vapor by way of a water pipe or vaping pen
As a cream applied to the skin, CBD can reduce pain as well as moisturize the area its applied to

With such a diverse number of options, patients have a lot of freedom with how they wish to consume CBD.

Because many forms of CBD are consumed orally, it’s also easy to make the medicine palatable.

The oil drops come in a variety of flavors (mango, chocolate, the list goes on), and the edibles can be surprisingly fun to eat.

CBD is often infused into desserts like cookies, but can be prepared in virtually any food item you can imagine.

So, Does CBD help with pain after surgery?

You’ve likely heard about it before reading this article, but many reports in the media have focused on whether or not it can be seriously considered as a treatment.

It still lacks the same comprehensive medical research that other, older treatments have.

CBD is a significant part of the discussion and debate over how recovering patients can better care for themselves and improve healing.

Sharing a parent plant with an illegal substance is what makes CBD so difficult for many to accept as an option for pain relief and is a major reason why research and funding don’t come easily.

CBD will almost certainly gain wider acceptance with time as the increasing legality of marijuana will trickle into more scrutiny of CBD and its benefits to those seeking to manage pain and other chronic illnesses.