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Medical marijuana: from nausea to epilepsy to nerve pain relief, people all over are finding relief from its use. Here’s why it’s the treatment we’ve needed.

If you’ve watched the news lately, chances are you’ve heard the term “medical marijuana” a bit more than once or twice…

And this is for a great reason! Many states have pushed towards research with marijuana to find out how exactly it can help us with many medical problems. In some areas, dispensaries have opened and people have been able to manage their conditions with a natural medicine– one that lacks the nasty side-effects of traditional prescriptions. It’s time to review why medical marijuana is the cure we’ve been searching for all these years.

We’ve put together 7 reasons that medical marijuana can be what you’ve been looking for to manage your symptoms:

Is medical marijuana the cure we need?
Here are 7 reasons why it is!

It helps with nausea

Whether a person is suffering from nausea because they are undergoing chemotherapy treatment or they’re experiencing nausea as a symptom of another illness, medical marijuana can help. It turns out that it’s been shown to help settle stomachs for those who experience nausea.

How? Marijuana, THC specifically, has been found to bind to brain receptors to decrease pain and discomfort (including nausea) by increasing our endocannabinoids.

It helps with pain and inflammation

Like we touched on in the previous section, marijuana can help with pain and inflammation. Endocannabinoids are found naturally in our body and naturally help with uncomfortable symptoms. However, the cannabinoids in marijuana have been shown to enhance these effects and even boost your immune system’s response to inflammation.

Medical marijuana can aid with fibromyalgia

This is a huge one: medical marijuana has shown that it can help people with chronic illnesses take control of their life again. Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disease that comes with stiffness, fatigue, and sometimes depression. It’s currently poorly controlled with traditional prescriptions, but many people have experienced relief from the pain-relieving factors of marijuana.

Chron’s disease and gastrointestinal issues can be managed better

If you’ve ever had a terrible stomach bug, you’ve gotten just a taste of what it’s like to live with Chron’s disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases. These problems are no light joke since they stop people from living normal lives and instead cause them to live with intense stomach pain and symptoms like diarrhea. Caron’s sufferers experience these symptoms to an even higher degree, but marijuana use has caused some people to go into remission. Medical marijuana can control and stop the spasms and pain associated with gastrointestinal diseases through, of course, the endocannabinoid system!

It’s been linked to helping control epilepsy

These stories have been all over the news and medical studies support them: medical marijuana can help with epilepsy and seizures. In these studies, 40% of patients had a reduction in their seizures after 8-12 weeks of marijuana use. At the end of the study, 9% were totally seizure free!

Depression can be alleviated without harmful prescriptions

Depression is a difficult medical problem to get under control because it’s often associated with a chemical imbalance. But thankfully medical marijuana has been proven to help. Depression tends to lower the levels of endocannabinoids in our brains, and THC is able to raise these levels to help alleviate depression.

Medical marijuana has been shown to help with PTSD

It’s one of the most horrible things to live with: PTSD. Millions of Americans suffer from this disorder and often find little relief from anti depression and therapy. Medical marijuana, on the other hand, provides people with PTSD an alternative option that can really help. How? Some strains of THC helps calm the areas in our brain that deal with fear and anxiety. In fact, New Mexico lists PTSD as the number one reason people get a medical marijuana license.

Is medical marijuana the treatment we’ve been waiting for?

Author Laina Bay-Cheng

Associate Professor of Social Work, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

More posts by Laina Bay-Cheng
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