Check Out Some Info on Using Cannabis to Treat Gout Symptoms
Gout is a one of the forms of arthritis that is quite complex, painful, and can affect anyone. The patients suffering from this condition are known to get sudden spikes of pain and inflammation, and the condition is usually known to affect some joints in the body.
It is usually triggered by arthropathy, and the patients are known to experience severe bouts of pain. These painful episodes can be effectively managed since they have been related directly to the endocannabinoid system in the body.
For this reason, patients with gout have some hope in terms of dealing with the symptoms and managing the sudden spikes of pain associated with the illness.
What is Gout?
This is a medical condition known as Podagra when it has something to do with the big toe. It usually results in pain attacks at the joint, which keep occurring and is one of the main forms of arthritis. The other forms of arthritis are:-
- fibromyalgia
- psoriatic arthritis
- rheumatoid arthritis
- osteoarthritis
Gout is quite different from the other forms of arthritis, especially when it comes to how uric acid crystals are deposited in the joint, the formation of a sudden immune response, and the pain associated with the condition.
For arthritis, the pain experienced is usually consistent. Still, for gout, the pain comes in sudden spikes and can happen when the patient goes about their daily activities such as sleeping and walking.
Gout is best defined as the inflammation of any joint in the body, but it has been known to affect the big toe joint more than the other lesser joints of the knees and ankles. The inflammation usually causes some intense symptoms.
For the condition to be diagnosed, a fluid sample must be studied under a microscope to rule out other likely causes of joint pain, such as septic joint and pseudogout. The tests are also used to determine the best path of treatments.
The condition usually appears when there is an accumulation of urate crystals in the joints. The crystals are formed whenever your body has a high uric acid level in the blood. Some conditions in the blood and thyroid diseases are known to inhibit the ability of the body to get rid of the excess uric acid.
As such, the crystals are formed, and when they are deposited into the joints, they cause gout, which is a painful condition occasioned by sudden pain spikes that can happen at any time regardless of the activity that the patient is currently taking part in.
When your diet is composed of foods high in purines, you will also be more likely to develop gout. The foods high in purines include organ meats, oily fish such as sardines, red meats, mushrooms, beans, anchovies, and other vegetables such as asparagus and cauliflower.
Symptoms of Gout
Joint pain: Without treatment, the painful spikes associated with gout can get very severe and usually last between 8 and 12 hours when they are being experienced for the first time.
Discomfort: This is a lingering feeling of discomfort that can be experienced for about a few days or weeks after the first bout of the intense pain has passed. The spikes that happen after this can lead to discomfort that lasts for much longer, which can also affect one or more joints of the body.
Inflammation: The joints, when inflamed, can experience tenderness, swelling, heat, and redness of the joints as well as the surrounding areas.
Limited Range of Motion: As the progress of gout keeps affecting an individual's life, it can also lead to the loss of mobility for the joint that has been affected.
This is why it is important to prevent gout by making use of changes in lifestyle, diet and getting routine medication to handle the symptoms and prevent the onset of the disease in the patient.
Given the severity of the symptoms, it is important that routine medication is done to ensure that the patient does not get more ill and their condition made even worse due to lack of medical attention.
Treating Gout with Cannabis
Can Cannabis be of Help?
Cannabis has been used to treat gout for millennia, and it started as early as the Chinese civilization in 2900 BC and later became part of western medicine in the 17th century.
Cannabis and pain management were studied and reviewed by Dr. Ethan Russo, and it was found to be quite effective for people struggling with gout.
One of the main reasons for using cannabis is its ability to alleviate swelling, inflammation, and pain. Cannabis has several compounds known as cannabinoids, and these have been proven to have plenty of benefits for arthritis patients. THC was known to work as a pain reliever.
CBC and CBD had an anti-inflammatory ability to reduce tenderness, inflammation, and swelling. These cannabinoids are all found in cannabis and are known to work together to enhance the effect of each compound when they are combined.
This was also studied by Dr. Ethan Russo and was termed the entourage effect. It has huge promise for the treatment of gout symptoms and is why many people over time and across several ancient kingdoms have been using it for the management and treatment of pain and inflammation.
It is effective at pain management, and for the treatment of gout, this is one of its most powerful features and why many patients are increasingly using it to lessen the severity of their pain spikes.
Medical Marijuana, Gout, and the ECS
ECS is the body’s nervous system's signaling system and is responsible for controlling the levels of pain that we can feel. Cannabinoids from cannabis products have stimulated cannabinoid receptors as they interact with them.
This usually leads to reduced perception of pain when it interacts with the ECS system and reduces or increases the levels of endocannabinoids to reduce inflammation. There is a unique connection between the ECS and cannabis, which makes the use of medical cannabis useful in so many different ways.
The methods of gout treatment at the moment include:
• Medication.
• Reducing foods rich in purine from the diet.
• Drinking plenty of water.
• Weight loss.
• A reduction in alcohol intake.
Additionally, managing kidney problems and blood pressure and using drugs and steroids has also been proven to be one of the ways of dealing with the pain and condition that is gout.
Unofficially, however, we can add cannabis to that list. The amount of research that is available about gout and cannabis is still greatly limited, but there is some promising evidence available on:-
- Use of cannabidiol as an oral therapy for arthritis
- use of cannabidiol to reduce pain and inflammation in arthritis patients
- Cannabinoids as treatment and medication for patients suffering from osteoarthritic knees.
Such forms of research are useful and provide useful information about how cannabis can help people who are suffering from gout.
The same research was also conducted on rats, and it was found that their pain and inflammation were eased. There is a lot of hope of cannabis being used to replace opioid medications, which are used with many arthritis patients. The current treatment options are usually very addictive.
They lead to plenty of additional effects and long-term dependence on the opioid drugs once the patient has established a pattern of using them. Many of the patients that have tried cannabis as a means of dealing with their pain have found it to be an effective means of relieving the pain.
They have also managed to decrease the use of other medications to handle their pain. Pain relief is also recommended as it is much better than opioid-based treatments and is not as addictive.
Patients were also observed to prefer only the CBD products and topical products that had the least amount of THC.
This is because it was easier to apply on the skin on top of the affected joint instead of eating edibles and smoking a joint. CBD oil taken orally was also observed to help some patients deal with the painful symptoms of gout, and the oil could also be applied to the skin.
This made it a more effective means of dealing with the pain associated with gout, and the patients were able to get a better experience. The topical methods were more effective since they were pretty easy to apply for the patients, and they could also be used without leaving an accumulation in the body systems.
As such, it was found to be one of the most effective means of cannabis consumption that would have an effective impact on the area that was affected and would not have any lingering effects left behind as a result of ingestion. However, if you have chosen to smoke or ingest medical cannabis orally, it is important to start with relatively small doses and gradually increase it over time.
This is important as it reduces the psychoactive effects, but at the same time, you are also able to get much-needed relief from inflammation and gout pain. The side effects of marijuana use are not necessary when using cannabis to manage gout and joint pain symptoms.
Preventing Flare-ups of Gout
Luckily, there are ways to lessen or possibly prevent the flare-ups of gout using methods that will not necessarily require the use of medication.
However, prescriptions are still effective and safe for many people, and lifestyle measures have also been proven to control the build-up of uric acid crystals in patients.
Simple lifestyle changes can ensure that the uric acid does not accumulate in the joints, and the patient will be able to deal with gout more easily. Some of the changes that can be made to a patient’s lifestyle include:-
- Drinking lots of water and reducing intake of fructose-sweetened beverages.
- Avoid alcohol in all the ways possible
- Obtaining proteins from sources that have low levels of fat
- Reducing foods that have high amounts of purine in your diet. These include red meats, veal venison, turkey, mussels, sardines, trout, and tuna.
- Maintain a low body weight by swimming, walking, and cycling. These activities do not impact your joints as much, and they are one way to manage gout in patients.
Gout is known to be one of the most painful forms of arthritis, and alongside prevention, it is also important to have less-risky treatment options that will also be more effective.
Medical cannabis is one of the easily accessible, effective, and affordable treatment options for inflammation, pain, and other accompanying gout symptoms.
It can be consumed in various ways, and the effects will be useful for dealing with gout in a patient. Even with limited research, the same effect that cannabis has on arthritis patients can also be used to treat and manage gout symptoms.
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