Imagine waking up in the middle of the night feeling a jolt of pain going into your hands and feet. It’s so bad, it feels like someone is stabbing you! The throbbing and piercing sensation puts you into tears. It is bad enough that the intensity is so painful, but imagine this happening every night of your life now. This would send the strongest person into the worst depression.
So what do you do? Turn on your lights and reach for the bottle of pain meds. Makes sense right? You try to open the bottle and only find that it feels like it weighs a thousand pounds!!! You struggle in frustration that the pain is preventing you from opening something so small that should be easy. Finally after minutes which feel like an eternity, the bottle is finally open. You grab a couple of pills and swallow them like someone who hasn’t eaten in a month. Now you sit and wait in anticipation for the pain to stop! Finally after about an hour, things are looking better and you feel relieved that you can now try to go back to sleep. Morning comes around and you feel tired and frustrated. Yes, you were able to fall asleep, but the quality was horrible. Your body feels like it has just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. Worst of all, your stomach is in knots from the pain medications. You feel miserable and hopeless!!
This is the reality of anyone with neuropathy or nerve pain and they experience it on a daily basis. It’s sad to hear and see that a world so technologically advanced still relies on pain medications with nasty side effects. It would be great if they actually worked, but we hear from our patients they are not even sure if anything is happening at all. So you’re taking a medication that is not working and has side effects. Now does this sound like a good deal? We can fly a robot to Mars but can’t do enough research to find a better solution for people to deal with neuropathy and nerve pain.
So the question is, why haven’t they? Is there something that exists that is better than antidepressants, anti seizure, or opioids for neuropathic nerve pain?
How much money do you think is made on neuropathic pain meds? 1 million, 1 billion, what do you think? The answer is a staggering 5 billion dollars a year!!
So if the pharmaceutical companies are making 5 billion dollars plus a year on these meds, why on earth would they invest in research or better alternatives for patients? It does not make sense from a business perspective. Neuropathy is not a condition that is going away, it is growing at an alarming rate. There are so many causes from diabetes, chemotherapy, as a result of surgery, blood pressure and cholesterol medication usage, inflammation driven, and hundreds of more causes. When you look at the scope and size of these numbers, the market is only going to go up.
How does the pharmaceutical business balance the business of benefit over money? This is the question. Is big pharma going to keep giving medication to people which in many cases becomes ineffective at some point? Are they OK giving medications to patients that cause other health problems? The answer is sadly yes for these companies. For them, it is about the money. They realize their medications have side effects, but to them it is a small price to pay.
So how do you break out of this mold? How do you take yourself out of the matrix and become Neo? The answer is CBD.
My specialty is Neuropathy. CBD topicals have been a miracle for my patients. It has allowed them to live again. They have been able to replace their pain meds with cbd. They have reported so many great things with the use of the topical cream. Do I think cbd in other forms can be effective for neuropathic patients? The answer is yes. I have personally not gone down that route, because our patient base is mostly high risk and on many medications. So we have to be very careful in introducing anything new to our patients.
Can you imagine waking up in pain everyday with no relief? We will never be able to understand the life of someone who lives in pain 24/7. This is why we have to do more. We have something so powerful in front of us with proven benefits. It has been proven to be superior to some of the remedies out there for pain. I believe CBD was placed on this earth for a reason. No matter your religious beliefs, I believe cbd has a greater purpose. The world is very sick and we are starting to see it more and more. It seems like life now is about instant gratification not about life long happiness. Happiness is about being healthy and doing the things you want to do on your terms. If we wait for the pharmaceutical companies to research and figure out that cbd is the holy grail, good luck. Knowing their history, they will find some way to mess it up.
So it is up to us as people, doctors, entrepreneurs to push the boundaries on all fronts. Our message needs to be clear and simple. The words that people hear and see need to be based on common sense science. CBD has very potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive properties. Inflammation is a complicated process involving many signaling pathways. The body uses signaling molecules called eicosanoids to initiate the inflammatory response.
One of the ways CBD can reduce inflammation is by inhibiting an eicosanoid enzyme called COX2. NSAID medications such as Advil and Aspirin also target COX2 in their method of action. Wouldn’t it be great to get to the point when we all know that 2 ibuprofen equals this much cbd? That you could take it and not have the side effects. It is amazing that something that came from this earth can save your life. Is that a crazy thought or what??
The science of cbd is clear. It creates balance in the body. When you look at any type of pain, it always involves a dysfunction in a chemical, structural, or neurological system. This is the methodology of how health problems typically occur. What does cbd do in general? It creates balance In the body. From a cellular perspective, when balance occurs, repair occurs as well. Now let’s take this concept to the next level. What if you can add other things to CBD? Adding amino acids or supplements to create a better harmony in the body. Giving your body everything it needs to create function. What would happen then? Specific proteins get produced, nerve growth factors proliferate, cellular repair commences. It’s like the seas parting in front of Moses. Life happens again. Life starts becoming enjoyable for people again. I have seen it over and over in my practices. It’s possible to achieve life without pain medication. It just takes more people thinking differently, talking about it, researching it, testing it, and pushing the boundaries to drive it to mainstream conversation. We have to be better than big pharma. Money is always part of the equation, but it doesn’t mean the people get a substandard solution.
In the famous words of Jerry Maguire “You complete me “. Let’s do more and be more with CBD.
