CBD & Pain Reduction

Cannabinoids & Pain: How It Works

Whether it’s common back pain or any other form of acute and/or chronic pain, pain is one of the most common health complaints that people have. But cannabinoids (and CBD specifically) have an important role to play in pain relief. They have become increasingly recognized as effective analgesics (painkillers).

Cannabinoids provide pain relief in at least two important ways.

They modulate inflammatory responses that cause pain
They reduce nociceptive thresholds in the central and peripheral nervous system.
By modulating the inflammatory response, they stop pain at its source. And by reducing the nociceptive thresholds, they decrease the perception of pain.

Research on Cannabinoids & Pain

The most widely researched aspect of cannabinoids is in the area of pain and pain management. In both studies that investigate pain as their primary outcome, as well as studies that evaluate other primary outcomes (e.g. spasticity, HIV, cancer, etc) but evaluate pain as a secondary outcome, the findings are consistent: cannabinoids are effective analgesics. For example:

Journal of the American Medical Association’s Systematic Review of Cannabinoid Analgesia concluded that cannabis therapy for marked pain relief and spasticity reduction is supported by high quality evidence1
National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine Meta-Analysis found “conclusive or substantial evidence” of the efficacy of cannabinoids in pain relief, spasticity, and seizures2
Petzke’s Systematic Review on Cannabinoids & Pain concluded that cannabinoids are effective for pain relief3