Neuropathy is a term for any type of nerve damage that causes pain, weakness, and numbness. While neuropathy isn’t necessarily a diagnosis and is more of a symptom, that symptom may experience significant benefit from medical marijuana. However, if you’re experiencing neuropathy, you also need to make sure that you’re using medical marijuana in the best way possible. These five steps may be able to help you more effectively with your neuropathy.
1. Know How Neuropathy Typically Benefits From Medical Marijuana
Before you start using medical marijuana, it’s a good idea to know how it will likely impact your condition. Different conditions achieve different impacts with medical marijuana, and with neuropathy, the case is no different. Typically, neuropathy is related to pain, which means that your medical marijuana benefits will likely be largely centered around pain.
The good news is that medical marijuana often has a dramatic impact on pain. Many people use medical marijuana for both chronic and acute pain, and neuropathy is typically a chronic type of pain. If you’re interested in getting the best experience from your medical marijuana usage, you might want to talk to your doctor about what you should expect. That way, you’re going into the experience with an accurate understanding of the benefits you’ll hopefully receive.
2. Find the Right Strain
The first step is to find the right strain. Most commonly, a strain will either be Sativa, which will typically perk you up, or Indica, which most commonly helps you calm down. When it comes to neuropathy, either of these may be helpful, if you’re using it regularly at night, you may want to try Indica, while if you’re using it during the day, you may want to try Sativa. There are also hybrid strains that can help you get some of the benefits of one type without some of the drawbacks.
The strain that you might want to use may vary depending on what you’re specifically looking for. There are a number of types of marijuana strains that have been identified as extremely beneficial for neuropathy, including:
- White Widow
- Super Silver Haze
- Purple Kush
- Chem Dawg
- Jack Herer
However, just because a strain is on this list, that doesn’t inherently mean that the strain is going to work for you, and just because a strain isn’t here, that doesn’t mean it’ll be useless. It’s all about trial and error, as well as taking the advice of other people who have tried many different strains. If you’re wondering where you might want to start, you should definitely talk to your doctor and to your budtender to learn more about different strains for neuropathy.
3. Use the Right Method of Ingestion
Just as there are many different medical marijuana strains out there, there are also multiple ways to ingest marijuana. Here are a few of the ways that you might ingest marijuana for neuropathy:
- Smoke (Either directly using a blunt or indirectly using a bong)
- Vape
- Take edibles, including homemade and store-bought edibles
- Apply topical creams, ointments, and salves
All of these methods are different, and you might want to take some time to look into which works best for your specific needs. For example, smoking and vaping is typically much quicker, but may have more of an impact to your health, as inhaling smoke can be damaging to the lungs. On the other hand, edibles may take longer, but might be better for your health, as edibles don’t require you to breathe in any smoke. Again, this element has more to do with trial and error – it’s up to you to try out different methods of ingestion so you can find the right one.
4. Be Aware of the Side Effects
While marijuana tends to have fairly mild side effects, it’s good to remember that you can experience side effects when you use medical marijuana. These side effects are fairly common, but often less intense than the effects of neuropathy. Most commonly, you’ll note:
- Increased appetite
- Dry mouth
- Sleepiness
- Red eyes
These side effects typically aren’t severe, and especially usually aren’t as severe as the existing condition. Additionally, changing your strain can mitigate some of them – different strains have different side effects, and Sativa strains and Indica strains are at different risks for different effects. If you’re especially worried about a specific side effect, make sure that you seek out a strain that has the lowest risk of that side effect. Talk to your budtender if you have any concerns.
5. Stay in Touch With Your Doctor
When you’re using medical marijuana, you should treat it like any other medication. When you first go on a new medication, it’s important to pay attention to your body and talk to your doctor about anything you might be noticing, both positive and negative. Whether you’ve noticed something that you’re really happy about or you’ve noticed something that you’re a bit concerned about, report all of it to your doctor; it’s often best to keep a list of things that you’re noticing with your medical marijuana usage.
Remember, you and your doctor should be on the same page when it comes to medical marijuana. You both want the best for your health, and you should even both believe that marijuana can have many properties that make it beneficial for a variety of conditions. However, even though medical marijuana can be helpful, you may need to try a number of things before it’s able to benefit you in the best way possible.
Conclusion
Neuropathy can be extremely debilitating; nerve pain is difficult to deal with at the best of times, and especially if you have neuropathy as a generalized issue that impacts many of your nerves, you might worry about being unable to find relief. Medical marijuana may be able to help you with this nerve pain, allowing you to manage it more easily. Just make sure you stick to these four tips to get the most out of your medical marijuana choices.