The human brain does not stop processing pain signals from injured nerves, and therefore chronic pain can be a
constant, life-long curse that can relentlessly increase in intensity. Starting out at three or four
pharmaceutical pain killers per day, most chronic pain sufferers will gradually notice a resistance to the active
ingredients of the available pain fighting drugs. This may find the patients requiring increasingly higher
strengths of the drugs or stronger drugs altogether just to keep their pain relief at the same level.
The same resistances can be said of marijuana when used as a pain killer. But with so many potent strains of both
the Indica and Sativa strains of marijuana, as well as cross-strains of both there is a seemingly endless array of
different strains to try once a patient becomes used to a certain strain of the drug. And as a sort of bonus after
a few weeks without using one of their favourite potent strains of marijuana patients find that that strain will be
as beneficial as it was the first time it was tried.
There are three different types of pain receptors in the human brain, and therefore chronic pain sufferers require
three different types of pharmaceutical pain relievers like Fentanyl, Percocet (or Percodan), Oxycontin (or
Oxycodone) and Dilaudid (or Hydromorphone). Some patients prefer methadone injections to combat pain but this can
lead to severe addiction problems as methadone is also used to combat extreme heroin addiction. Marijuana is not
extremely addictive and has fewer side effects than most pharmaceutical pain killers.
To date the best way to treat chronic pain was to inundate the patient with extremely potent opiates and other
narcotic pharmaceuticals. With much weaker to no side effects (other than light headedness, the giggles and the
munchies) and similar pain fighting successes marijuana is now replacing these strong narcotics as the number one
sought after chronic pain remedy. And many long-suffering souls think that it is high time that it happened.
It is widely accepted that people have differing levels of pain tolerance and that any two people with the same
pain-inducing ailments or injuries would have both a different level of pain and different requirements for dealing
with that pain. For this reason any and all strains of marijuana are classified as “medical” or “medicinal”
marijuana since each strain of the drug has some beneficial use for most chronic pain sufferers.
Pain Management