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You're getting a lot of answers from Americans. Be aware that CBD oil sold in Germany (Dm, Rossmann, etc.) almost certainly doesn't contain significant levels of THC.
The evidence doesn't seem to suggest CBD alone is effective in pain management:
Cannabis oil that contains THC is almost certainly a different matter.
Thank you for the heads up! Half way through the answers I asked myself if a German community would have been a better pace to ask in terms of obtaining the substances, but the effect should be globally available I guess.
Are you informed if the latter is legally available in Germany?
THC is illegal, at least for now. That's what they're aiming to change at the moment.
Medical marijuana is legal in Germany. If OP needs it for health reasons he could go through legitimate process.
Only with CBD products bought at a marijuana dispensary. The crap they have at gas stations and the like does absolutely nothing.
My favorite has been Mary Jane's subliminal tincture. It's CBD oil in a 1:16 ratio of THC and unlike the other subliminals I've tried, they put some flavor in it so it's like butterscotch and not gross fish oil like flavor that gives me heartburn.
There's been some research and basically those products are unregulated and a good amount of them have zero or negligible actual CBD in them.
Some claim like, grams of CBD and they have zero in them it's just oil. It's basically homeopathic CBD.
My wife and I both have lives now because of it. In my case, I have body aches from a bad car wreck, and after ten years of only getting maybe 3 hours of good sleep each night, followed by prescribed meds that left me dopey all day long, marijuana was legalized here. My wife makes CBD cookies for me and after a bit of experimenting to get the right amount, I now generally wake up feeling refreshed and have even been needing less sleep for the last several years.
On the other hand, my wife lives with chronic pain from childhood accidents including one where she was partially paralyzed for a few years (spine injuries suck!). She is now on permanent disability because she wasn't able to sit at a desk for 8 hours a day. Since mj was legalized, she got off the opioids, smokes throughout the day to manage the pain as needed, but is able to get things done around the house when she's having good days (which is most of the time).
If you want to go down this road, you will definitely get a better experience than you have with doctor-prescribed medications, however because there's still not a lot of data on the subject you will want to find what works for YOU. If you do any cooking, learn how to make oil and butter from mj, and use that to bake your own cookies, cakes, or whatever. This way you have control over what strains go in to what you are eating, and you can control how much of it is used. You can get instruments to be more scientific with it, but really once you have some experience with CBD/mj it won't really matter. It also tends to be quite a lot cheaper than buying pre-made edibles from the store.
Now, for what to expect... For my use, the right amount is something that I barely feel, if at all. What I do notice is once it starts to kick in (which is right before bed anyway), I start to drift off and have to make an effort to get up and go to bed. If I eat too much then yeah, things can start to get a bit crazy, and I don't get as good of sleep that night. For my wife managing her pain, she describes it by saying the pain doesn't really go away, she just stops caring about it so it doesn't control her life. Again, the right amount isn't so much that she acts like a stoner all the time (and she consumes a LOT more than I do), but rather it's enough that she can start to function again despite the pain. So it's not unusual for you to not feel anything, but it's also possible you're simply not getting enough.
Hope that helps?
Yeah, thank you! As far as I understand what you describe, your therapy is not solely based on CBD but also a not irrelevant fraction of THC, am I getting that right? Honestly I'm a little scared to go that route, but I'm really happy it held you so much!
Really it depends on the results you are looking for. I think the THC portion helps my wife with the "forget about the pain" part, but what she makes for me is substantially higher CBD. Technically all of it has some percentage of CBD and some percentage of THC, it's a sliding scale depending on the strain, and what I use is nothing like what she uses. So you probably want to start out with strains that are much higher in CBD, especially if you have to go to work while medicating, and see what effect that has for you. What worked for me was taking more and more until I felt the effects, then backing off and realizing I didn't really need that much. It's probably similar to diabetics, knowing where their blood-sugar is at and if they eat a certain thing it will balance them out without needing a shot, you just figure out over time what helps you, and just like any other medication taking too much has negative side effects. Luckily with THIS medication you can't take enough to actually kill you.
Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention... If you are taking edibles, then already having food in your stomach will have an effect on the results, most notably taking longer to do anything. And different strains can also kick in at different speeds. Since I eat my cookie after dinner, it takes around two hours before it actually starts to do anything. If I ate one on an empty stomach it could be 30 minutes or less. Previous food also makes it ramp up slower, meaning that I might start to feel some effects from the THC portion, but I wouldn't be able to go to sleep yet because the CBD portion hasn't really started working yet. Hope that makes sense? You may not have noticed the effects when you tried CBD before because maybe it took longer than you expected to start working so you weren't paying any attention by that time?
Of course if you don't already have some decent experience with it, then it's best to start on the weekend so you don't have to do something crazy like drive to work the next morning. It's possible to get to the point where you can take higher THC strains later in the day -- there are telltale signs that let you know when it's not safe to do things that might be dangerous, but again this takes a lot of experience and the ability to stop and honestly evaluate your current state. The problem here is that it will literally sneak up on you without any warning. I can be sitting at my computer for hours after eating a cookie, writing code or doing something else that requires some pretty focused thought, and have no idea the cookie ever kicked in... Then I stand up to go to the bathroom and realize I can't keep my balance without hanging on to the wall! Even with mine, while I was learning the effects there were a couple mornings I had to call in sick because I could feel that off-balance still nagging at me and didn't want to take any risks. Sorry I keep mentioning this but you definitely want to be careful so nobody gets hurt.
I'm having trouble finding it, but I ran across a study a few months ago whose results pointed to greater pain relief gains when CBD was consumed with THC, and that both substances alone do less to "relieve" pain.
I wouldn't say it helps relieve pain as much as it lets you be distracted from pain.
Also, personally, when I have used CBD on it's own, it never did anything for me at all. It only ever worked in combination with THC.
Finally, people taking other medications need to be careful about taking CBD.
The vast majority of medications are broken down by enzyme CYP3A4, an enzyme that CBD inhibits.
I am taking a life-saving/life-altering medication to manage a severe disease. It is handled in my body by CYP3A4. Meaning I can really fuck up my medication dosage by taking CBD on its own, because it will inhibit the ability of CYP3A4 to ingest the drug.
User [email protected] helpfully pointed out that grapefruit inhibits CYP3A4 as well, so if you're not supposed to eat grapefruit, you should probably also avoid CBD. I hadn't even made that connection myself, very astute, pizza_rolls!
Thank you for pointing that out! ~~In~~ I'm in the happy place of not having to take anything else on a regular basis, but it sure makes sense to keep the heads up of required.
Absolutely. I am glad I did the research myself and stumbled across this fact, because when I was prescribed this drug I bought a lot of CBD chocolates, thinking they would help. I was surprised that sooooooooo many prescribed medications use CYP3A4 as a pathway to enter the body, and how this isn't discussed more often. I really haven't seen very much discussion at all about how CBD can inhibit the effectiveness of a whole host of prescription drugs.
Anyway, cheers, glad to be sharing the info!
My wife has chronic neuropathic pain, and the CBD gummies seem to help her sleep. They don't seem to overtly reduce the pain, but maybe make her less anxious about it.
Thank you! I think, this is an aspect I tend to underestimate: the anxiousness pain causes. It is not affecting me much of what I experience, but deep down, it is a thing.
Pain is a really interesting thing, and there's an undeniably subjective aspect of it. My wife has had a chronic pain condition since 2008, and one thing I've noticed it's that her pain is worse when she's stressed, PMSing, or whatever. There's no objective way to measure pain, and I think at least part of what's happening is that her ability to deal with one level of pain gets better or worse depending on her mental state.
I think of it like going out and finding you have a flat tire. If there's not much going on, you're not rushed, you had a good night's sleep, etc., you might just think "Well, that's annoying," and deal with it. If you're sleep deprived, your kid is sick, and you're under a bunch of pressure at work, you might just want to sit on the curb and cry. Same situation, but your ability to deal with it is different.
Pain is like that, I think. If you're in a bad place, things seem to hurt more because your ability to deal with the pain is less.
Yes, they stop my panic attacks and help me sleep at night. But I’m super picky on brand. I use only lab verified, US companies that have been in the business since before it was legalized nationwide. A lot of growers and such are being bought up by corporations and even Chinese companies and quality is going in the pisser. And I’ve even gotten a nightmare experience that had me trapped under the influence of something that definitely wasn’t cannabis based at all.
I think you need to find your dosage and stay on it to help with inflammation which can also reduce pain. I took a lot when I lifted weights regularly. But I ended up making it myself to make it affordable.
I'd use a reputable company. Some seem to try to keep costs down--I sometimes would buy theirs for convenience. (I would use an decarb/infusion machine and eventually bought an extraction machine. Basically cold alcohol wash hemp then evaporate the alcohol back out).
Thank you! This gives me some highschool vibes of chemistry. The useful aspects of it at least. Is it fool safe or would you recommend starting with ready products?
Weed in jar. Jar in freezer. 190 proof ethanol in freezer. Next day- mix, shake, freezer for one Netflix show, strain through strainer, strain through cheesecloth or coffee filter. Use an electric (NOT GAS!) appliance (rice cooker, crock pot, air fryer, dehydrator, or fan) to evaporate the alcohol. When you have a dark, sticky goo, add a little coconut oil for viscosity and heat to 250f, stirring occasionally until the tiny carbonation bubbles slow down.
Chronic migraine sufferer here. Like 25+ days a MONTH, over 5 on the pain scale, plus all the other fun symptoms.
I had tried literally every other drug on the market for migraine, even some off label, except Botox. The newest class of migraine drugs wasn’t on the market yet. History tells me I likely will not do well with Botox, so as a last ditch effort, before trying it, I decided to experiment with weed again.
Life changing is an understatement. Went from most of the month, where I felt like I was slowly dying, to having MAYBE 2 relatively mild migraines per YEAR.
Certain strains work better for me as an abortive, than others, but just having it in my system daily gave me my life back. It doesn’t seem to matter whether is a 1:1 (CBD:THC) or just a regular old mostly THC strain, it just works for me.
Have you tried cgrp antagonists? I tried literally everything to the point where multiple neurologists said they couldn't help me. I was using THC for a long time for my migraines but I was still suffering. With cgrp antagonists I feel 100% normal and it works every time, even if it takes longer if I take it too late.
It's worth trying a sample if you haven't, because it's a world of difference between being high with a migraine and just not having one anymore IMO
Nurtec is approved for preventative now too
CBD never did shit for migraines for me, only anxiety
Thank you and I'm so happy for you it helps!
Cbd doesn't help my migraines, but cbg does.
Honestly, I don’t even need to get stoned for it to help. Just a small puff off the vape, once a day, and I’m good to go. I haven’t bothered to try playing with the not thc stuff.
The rare instance a migraine starts, at least weed is an incredibly predictable thing. A migraine can range from “eh I can power through” to “hmmm Half the vision in my right eye is gone”. I’ll take being stoned lol.
From what you write, stoned is a positive side effect of the whole thing isn't it? Out do you think this is the main aspect of why the migraine is so much better bearable to you?
I find CBD oil helps with anxiety. Not a severe case of anxiety, but it does take the edge off.
My wife was struggling with anxiety attacks from PTSD. She tried a few different CBD blends before settling on a pure CBD isolate with only flavoring added. She would buy it at a pharmacy that made their own specialty medications in-house. She would take it first thing in the morning and if she felt anxiety coming on later in the day. It really helped make her anxiety a little more manageable.
She eventually found a good psychiatrist that prescribed anti anxiety medication, and she hasn't really needed the CDB since. But it was very helpful for the few months that it took to find a psychiatrist and medication that worked for her.
the problem is the legality of other cannibinoids where you live …
I'm in bed with a fractured wrist and an opoid intolerance/allergy. Where can I learn more about the dominant pain systems/different solutions you mentioned?
proviso: I am not medically trained and most of what I’ve picked up has been informally through the American cannabis communities and legalization efforts
and options for dealing with pain in the US are a hot topic item – you need a medical professional that is knowledgeable about ALL the options but doctors get their licensing at the federal level, not the state level, so they risk their license to even talk about cannabis
from what I’ve stumbled across, opioids work better on acute pain (ex. fractures) and cannabinoids work better on chronic pain (ex. fibromyalgia, stress) – ie. cannabis will help with aches and tension, allowing you to get a night’s sleep – but for direct pain from the fracture, you might be stuck with NSAIDs which have their own slew of issues
I know almost nothing about the other pain systems, but Wikipedia generally has some good starting points
Yes, I used CBD herb (hemp) along with a dynavap to quit smoking: It worked great! I still vape dry herb partly to relax and partly to quell any urges for cigarettes since a dynavap is very similar in shape and use. I have been cigarette free for 5 years now!
This is a tricky question. I'm inclined to have a positive opinion about CBD, but if I'm completely honest I don't feel much of anything from it solo. I've taken CBD by itself multiple times and it always just seemed like a placebo. I think CBD and THC together have a great synergy, but it really misses the mark when I only have the one without psychoactive effects.
On the other hand, I've had friends swear by CBD tinctures. They were doing large doses (like 50mg+) daily and claimed it had all sorts of benefits for their chronic pain or upset stomach. I never tried doing doses that big regularly just because of the cost and my previous experiences leaving me dissatisfied.
For what it's worth, Extract Labs is one of the sources I've had recommended to me by a trusted friend.
Thank you for passing on the recommendation! I'm a little scared to go with any significant fraction of THC... Maybe my dose was just too low so far.
I recently got a medical card for cannabis. during the call, the doctor said to use a CBD:THC combo for the best results on pain relief. seems to be working well for me.
Thank you! Would you mind to share what radio does the trick for you?
If you're taking any other meds, speak to a doctor before you try it.
I have a chronic illness that led to organ transplantation, and cannabis would interfere with one of my rejection meds. That would have caused me much bigger problems than the pain that I was trying to stop.
Unfortunately, cannabis has an almost cult like mythology around it. There are lots of people who will tell you that it cures everything, from mild pain to every type of cancer, and will even clean and polish your car 😉
I hope you find what you need. Good luck 🙂
It has an effect but the price for that effect is insane (at least in the UK) . It isn't an instant thing you need to keep taking it for at least a few weeks.
Definitely made me much calmer but like I said not at that price.
Thank you for your report! Yeah money is also an aspect. In Germany and I think EU (sorry bro) they start seeking it as a drug in pharmacies. If I found it to be of any help to me, I wished I found a way like getting my health insurance passing for it 😜 Don't you have any similar options?