Medical Marijuana for Chronic Pain in Louisiana

Chronic pain is a condition that can last for months, years, and even decades. Chronic pain has been described as "pain that lasts for six months or longer and may never go away completely."

Chronic pain is an approved condition for medical marijuana in Louisiana.

Chronic pain can be a result of an underlying condition, or it can surface as a problem of its own. Chronic pain can also arise from the overuse of muscles, joints, bones, or tissues within the body.

Today, chronic pain is one of the biggest challenges facing healthcare systems, and one of the biggest problems in Louisiana. Healthcare providers must deal with chronic pain in many ways, and as one of the most subjective conditions, it's often difficult to diagnose.

Who Gets Chronic Pain?

Anyone can get chronic pain, and studies show that over 20% of Americans were diagnosed with chronic pain in 2019 alone.

To diagnose chronic pain accurately, it is important to understand what is causing the chronic pain so that doctors can develop proper treatment plans.

Some of the most common conditions that can cause chronic pain include arthritis, rheumatism, migraines, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis (MS), asthma, glaucoma, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and thyroiditis.

How is Chronic Pain Treated?

Louisiana is in the middle of a chronic pain epidemic.

It's an epidemic that crosses gender, race and socioeconomic boundaries and can cripple families with little hope of relief or recovery.

And while Louisiana has put in place restrictions to help prevent the prescription of opioids on first time visits to Primary Care Physicians, chronic pain is one of the conditions that can slip through these preventative measures.

Opioids Often First Line Treatment for Chronic Pain

Often opioids are prescribed as a first-line defense with chronic pain, regardless of the health consequences of these dangerous pharmaceutical drugs.

The opioid crisis has exacerbated chronic pain, but it isn't solely responsible for this growing problem. The reality is that chronic pain can be caused by many different diseases and even accidents or injuries can cause lifelong chronic pain, such as car accidents or sports injuries, which may not even show up immediately, but instead the chronic pain can develop months or years after the initial injury.

Can Medical Marijuana Help with Chronic Pain?

Alleviating pain is crucial for patients with the chronic condition, and many have found that medical marijuana has worked like a wonder drug compared to the harmful alternatives that are prescribed for chronic pain.

In fact, research suggests chronic pain is likely the most common reason patients apply for a medical marijuana card, with over 60% of medical marijuana patients using their cannabis to treat chronic pain.

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Medical Marijuana May be Better Than Opioids for Chronic Pain

And studies have consistently shown that medical marijuana has a very high efficacy in treating different types of pain without the dangerous side effects such as overdose related deaths, increased anxiety, and increased depression that opioid use is linked to.

Medical marijuana has been used to treat many different types of pain, including chronic pain, for thousands of years without the adverse risk of overdosing or permanently altering your brain’s reward system, which are problems that opioids can unfortunately produce.

There’s no better time than now to become a medical marijuana patient in Louisiana, and our staff of qualified Doctors can be reached at (833) 253-2943 to help answer any questions you may have about getting a Louisiana marijuana card for chronic pain.