What is painlessness and can cannabis help?
Insomnia occurs occasionally in 30% of the population, but 10% have chronic sleep problems. Add chronic pain and you have a recipe for disaster. What is painlessness and can cannabis help? Pain somnia is a term that describes how chronic pain can affect a person's sleep. Although pain somnia is not a medical term, it is used anecdotally to describe a common challenge experienced by people with persistent chronic pain.
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Characterized by Dawn Gibson and Dr. Ben Nowell, Pain Somnia is the painful lack of sleep that affects many. It can also cause pre-existing conditions to worsen. In one case study, Gibson and Nowell explained how some people actually wake up in pain and have difficulty getting back to sleep.
“Pain somnia is a patient-generated term for the vicious cycle of pain and sleep deprivation or fatigue associated with a chronic disease or its treatment,” they said. “Pain somnia is a short description that emerged from social media discussions and helps people engage with one another in posts about being awakened by pain and not being able to find a comfortable position in bed or move to sleep Sleeping and resting “to calm down”. Anxiety and frustration about lack of sleep and its impact on performance the next day often go hand in hand with patients’ experiences of pain and virtual discussions.”
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There is clear evidence that marijuana improves sleep. Israeli scientists wanted to better understand whether marijuana could help patients with chronic pain get the rest they need. In their study, published in the medical journal BMJ, about half of the participants were medical marijuana users and half were not. They found that in the short term, marijuana quickly helped the insomniac participants in the 128-person study sleep through the night.
Studies have found that marijuana may be helpful in treating neuropathic pain (a certain type of chronic pain caused by damaged nerves). However, more research is needed to determine whether marijuana works better at relieving pain than other options. Additionally, cannabis can relieve certain types of chronic pain, including pain due to nerve damage and inflammation.
Both cannabis and CBD can be helpful in treating pain somnia. More research has been done (and more is needed) to understand the benefits of cannabis, particularly when it comes to inflammation, chronic pain, and sleep. There isn't as much data regarding CBD, but inflammation can be treated with CBD.
Data shows that CBD reduces levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, inhibits T cell proliferation, induces T cell apoptosis, and reduces immune cell migration and adhesion.
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If you have someone who is experiencing painlessness, talk to a doctor. The American Sleep Apnea Association is convinced that sleep is not only linked to health and work performance, but also to much more.
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