In this article, we look at CBD oil for reducing inflammation and the anti-inflammatory properties of cannabidiol. We try to simplify it too because it can be a quite complicated process.
What is Inflammation & what happens in the body?
Well let’s just use an example. Inflammation can be good and it can be bad. In the normal area you have an inflammation and that enhances healing. And so that’s the real purpose of inflammation, it serves the dual purpose of both healing and protection.
Protection in the sense that you have an area that maybe has an infection and you want to bring in those macrophages and those immune elements that are going to clean up the mess. Or if there’s some damaged tissue, to clean that out so that the full healing can occur.
But the process of inflammation is quite intriguing. It’s a little bit like getting a 9-1-1 call. You don’t really know what’s happening until you get there, so you’re not sure whether to send an ambulance, fire truck, or a policeman.
Purpose of Inflammation & Cytokines
So the inflammation is a signal to the body, it’s the 911. You need to go out and check that out. And so the body sends immune cells. The first step is, it invites the immune cells or the immune cells are already there.
They start to signal back to the body and they will stimulate and release these inflammatory substances in the area.
And when that happens then you either have the occurrence of a reaction that protects the body against the toxins or you have the recruitment of other immune cells.
In that process you have many of the other immune cells coming to the area as well as irritating substances called cytokines that are released into the area.
And those are the ones that cause the redness, swelling, heat and the pain that occur. Now, the next process should be the healing process. And that pretty well works most of the time.
But for a lot of us who are facing chronic diseases, then you can imagine that this 9-1-1 call is like a light switch, it gets turned on but somebody forgot to turn it off.
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Chronic inflammation & how to calm it down
And so you have this continual inflammatory situation that is cycling and cycling and it doesn’t turn off. How do you get that to calm down?
Steroids, they may work but they eventually cause further destruction and further damage and you can’t keep up with that.
Prolotherapy sounds like a great idea to involve for those chronic situations that are there. But not really, it may not be chronic inflammation or destructive inflammation that we’re typically seeing. But enough to cause significant amount of pain.
CBD Oil for Inflammation: Pain & Cytokines
CBD actually fits into the inflammation story in a number of different ways.
First off, when there is inflammation, Cannabidiol can go in and alleviate at least a portion of the pain. It provides some analgesia to the area.
And then it starts interfering with the cytokines of those inflammatory substances that are causing a lot of the symptoms.
Regardless of whether it’s pain or the recruitment of immune cells.
Or it’s the swelling and increase permeability of the vessels that are around the area. Or it’s the redness or it’s actually the amount of recruitment of the inflammatory cells that are there.
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CBD Oil for Inflammation: Macrophages & the communication within the cell
So you have got these macrophages that are on the site and they’re coming in?
Good news for you, Cannabidiol has actually been shown to reduce the number of those macrophages and the inflammatory cells populating area.
This process is so effective, even to the point of reducing the number of antibodies that are being presented to the T-cells for differentiation and creating antibodies to participate in the inflammatory process that’s going on.
So a number of fascinating responses actually go on during the action of CBD.
In the same vein, CBD works intracellularly to affect the communication within the cell, whether it’s at the mitochondrial level or the endoplasmic reticulum or within the nucleus.
A lot of that communication is actually signaled by Cannabidiol, and improves its functioning. And as a result you have this global possibility of improvement in a number of inflammatory situations.
CBD & Inflammatory bowels/Crohn’s disease
A really classical example where we can observe CBD’s anti-inflammatory action is inflammatory bowel disease. So we’re talking about crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. After three weeks of cannabidiol treatment, we’ve seen an absolute normalization of gut function in patients.
And the effects are so astounding, as far as some patients displaying normal endoscopy at six weeks.
All of this occurred in situations where the patient had a severely inflamed gut alongside tumor necrosis factor with a number of other cytokines circulating within the body.
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CBD – Restoring balance in the Intestines
CBD has the effect of calming all of that down and restoring the tight junctions within the intestines and restoring balance to the gut.
It also reduces the motility, lowering the typical hyper motility that leads to frequent diarrhea in patients.
So, you have this wonderful balanced effect going on with the inflammatory bowel disease.
Typically, patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease have had an autoimmune disorder initiated, and in our perspective, something is responsible for triggering this reaction.
We see that as a combination of factors. It’s not due to a random occurrence, but these people are already prone to it. Therefore, we would say they need to continue the usage of CBD but not at the same dosage level.
They may be able to reduce their dosage and we recommend only about a quarter of what was being taken for the acute problems. This will help to maintain the benefits, sustain the anti-inflammatory effect and also prevent the recurrence of the autoimmune disorder.
What would be an initial dose or the recommendation?
So, we see inflammatory bowel disease as a crisis point. And in our view, maximum therapy must be used at that crisis point to get it under control.
A lot of people only get introduced to CBD at the crisis point, so we would recommend 90 milligrams of CBD coming typically from the tincture because we know that to be highly effective.
Now after they’ve been on that for a while with some improvement in the condition and a decrease of the inflammation, the dosage can be reduced to 60 mg.
We often describe our CBD doses in milligram, and you can easily calculate it from the concentration written on the bottle containing your CBD product. For a systemic disease like crohn’s disease, you should probably consider taking it twice or thrice daily.
Another thing about Cannabidiol is that it’s unique, every individual is different in terms of its effect and how you are going to respond. Or where you are deficient in your own personal cannabinoids, you have to make up for it through dosing.
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