Cannabis and Causalgia Unleashing Wonders of Cannabis Plant

CRPS type II, more commonly known as Causalgia, is a rare condition that involves debilitating pain in the part of your extremities that undergo some sort of damage or injury in the peripheral nerves. The pain is reported to be more targeted and localized than that of the CRPS type I.

A survey reveals that more than 90% of the Causalgia cases arise from damage caused by surgeries. The pain is severe enough to make even those mundane tasks insurmountable for you. Having to cope with such pain with high potency pain killers for longer periods might pose threats to your well-being. Thus, turning back to natural remedies like cannabis extracts seems to be a wiser choice.

The following write-up is a conscious effort to help your understand Causalgia and put together all the ins and outs of using cannabis for Causalgia pain.

Causalgia: Explained And Described

Causalgia is a painful condition caused by injuries that affect your nerves stemming from the spinal cord to various body parts, especially your limbs. Brachial plexus injuries are highly responsible for the development of the said condition.

The injury in the nerves leads to disrupted nervous signals and abnormally increased production of neurotransmitters which may cause pain.

Symptoms Of Causalgia:

The patients report widely varying symptoms from those of CRPS type II. In Causalgia or CRPS type II, generally painful symptoms are caused by a nerve injury and experienced in a localized region around the nerve injury.

The symptoms highly deviate according to the injury that occurred to you. If you experienced an injury in a nerve lying in your arm, you’d notice that your pain settles near your arm and travels no further. This is quite different from that of CRPS type I, in which the symptoms aren’t really targeted towards a certain part. Injury in a tiny part of the body may travel way farther.

Causalgia pain occurs as a result of injuries in the peripheral nerves of your body. These are the nerves that make their way from the spine to several other parts throughout your body, which implies that you may experience Causalgia in the following extremities of your body.

• Limbs of the body, i.e., legs and arms
• Fingers, hands, and feet.

The symptoms do not vary according to the part of the body that gets affected.

• The burning and aching effect due to excruciating pain localized to the region affected by injury seems pretty minor compared to the amount of pain prevailing for six months or more.
• Sensations are similar to that of pinching pins and needles.
• The area around the injury may get hypersensitive to even the tiniest of triggers like touch. Changing clothes might also be hard for the patients as the injured regions become hypersensitive.
• Inflammation and stiffness in the affected part of the limb
• Sweat glands are triggered to produce abnormal amounts of sweat in the injured region.
• A sudden change in the temperature or color of the affected area is a commonly observed effect.

What Are The Causes Of Causalgia?

The cause of Causalgia can be better understood if you understand the network of peripheral nerves across the body. This is because an injury in the peripheral nerves causes Causalgia, but how does this happen? Such an injury generally happens when the individuals go through any fracture, surgery, or sprain.

Although surgeons consider taking a reasonable amount of care during the surgeries, several cases of Causalgia arise after ankle surgeries. Some other causes of Causalgia are as follows:

• Conditions such as burns that affect the body’s tissues and make them go through soft-tissue trauma may lead to Causalgia pain in the patients.
• Crushing injury is another common cause of Causalgia. For example, you might have slammed your finger in a car door, and this can cause symptoms of Causalgia.
• Amputation of a body part may also lead to nerve damage which further leads to Causalgia.

Experts are still trying to figure out why all patients’ experiences widely vary. Everybody responds differently to the triggers; some show dramatic responses while the others don’t.

Also, studies suggest that patients are likely to have structural or functional abnormalities in nerve fibers, and this makes them sensitive to the signals of pain traveling across the nerves.

Patients experience inflammation or discoloration in the affected parts, which are described as an effect of the inflammatory response initiated by such neural abnormalities.

Risk Factors of Causalgia Pain

Experts are still ambiguous about exactly what triggers the symptoms of Causalgia as the effects widely vary on an individual basis. However, some factors play a significant role in triggering the condition in more cases, and some conditions make the patients even more vulnerable. Here’s a brief account of a few of the risk factors of Causalgia or CRPS type II.

• If an individual is already going through a medical condition that affects the immune system, he is more likely to develop the condition. This is because Causalgia directly affects the immune system, affecting the production of cytokines responsible for the body’s inflammatory response.
• Surgeries and fractures are considered the most popular reasons for developing Causalgia in patients.
• Burns and cuts in the skin that are severe enough to damage nerves
• Medical procedures that involve needles

The slightest of factors may act as potential stimuli to induce the symptoms of Causalgia. It’s basically an abnormal response of the body that aggravates the after-effects of surgery.

How Can Cannabis Help With Causalgia Pain?

Undoubtedly cannabis is marking its position and ranking pretty high in the medical arena as it has a phenomenal range of healing effects to offer to patients suffering from different medical conditions. Even if we lack formal research on whether cannabis can be used to treat medical conditions or not, we surely have a series of research and experimentation on the fact that cannabis may facilitate the improvement of the symptoms.

Causalgia is another condition characterized by intense pain and other symptoms that may make it hard for the patients to function properly. Experimental evidence suggests that cannabis may significantly improve the patient’s ability to cope with the daily routine and chores related to their social functionality.

Also, cannabis lets you choose whether you want to feel high or not. There are a plethora of different chemical properties with distinct properties. THC is the main psychoactive part that can be avoided if you’re looking for a non-psychoactive drug. CBD is a better option for such patients.

Here’s how cannabis can help Causalgia patients:

1. Fighting Off Pain

Coming across Causalgia means managing debilitating conditions of pain for protracted periods which seems pretty risky. Pain killers can have other adverse effects on the body, which explains why you need a rather gentle source of relief from this extreme level of pain in Causalgia.

That’s when you feel like turning back to natural remedies like cannabis extracts which can effectively address various factors that make you hypersensitive toward the pain signals. Several types of cannabis products may be used according to the patient’s condition and preference.

2. Sleep Better

Sleeping well is always crucial to faster healing, no matter what medical conditions you’re going through. Sleeping is a golden chance for your body to recover and revive its well-being. While it’s imperative to sleep well in such conditions, it can be difficult to sleep in conditions like Causalgia.

Having trouble sleeping makes it difficult to handle challenges the next day. The Cannabinoids in the cannabis extracts may directly interact with the endocannabinoid system to induce sleep without making you feel groggy or drowsy. 

3. Anti-inflammatory Effects

Inhibiting the action of cytokines in your body, cannabis extracts help your body fight the inflammatory and muscle stiffness which is a common symptom of Causalgia. These cytokines are part of your body’s inflammatory response.

Cannabis and Causalgia: Research And Findings

Cannabis experts are on the hunt for answers to how cannabis may be able to treat Causalgia. Anecdotal evidence regarding the healing potentials of cannabis extracts clearly suggests that CBD, THC, and other cannabinoids and terpenes of the cannabis plant might do wonders to fight inflammation, pain, insomnia, muscular spasms, and other common symptoms faced by the patients.

• Studies support the ability of the cannabis plant to help the patients deal with pain by reducing their sensitivity and by inhibiting the channels of pain signals. [1]
• Some experts believe that the Cannabinoids in the cannabis plant are truly capable of helping the body seek relief from neuropathic pain. [2]
• The cannabis plant may reduce your vulnerability to developing inflammation by inhibiting the action of the body’s inflammatory response. [3]

Final Thoughts

All the aspects mentioned above of the cannabis and Causalgia pain bring forth that the Cannabinoids and terpenes in the cannabis extracts may display a plethora of wondrous effects to cope with the symptoms of Causalgia.

1. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/can.2017.0017
2. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD012182.pub2/full
3. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/can.2020.0105