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CBD and Fibromyalgia
Not very long ago, women (and it is mostly women) who presented to their doctors with fibromyalgia were told it was “all in their heads.” In other words, since (mostly male) doctors could not find a physical reason for their pain, insomnia and anxiety, it was assumed their illness was mental. This was before we knew what we now know about the brain and the way it gives signals.
Now we know that in fibromyalgia, as in many kinds of chronic pain, that part of our brain that’s a smoke alarm looking for danger is stuck in the permanently “on” position. A good smoke alarm should only go off when there’s actually danger, and go off when the danger passes. And if it does keep going, you can remove the battery from the alarm and it will stop beeping.
But in fibromyalgia, even when the fire is gone and there’s no more smoke, the smoke alarm keeps going. There’s no battery to remove. Eventually, the pain signals keep going all the time and the pain becomes chronic. Someone with fibromyalgia is continually sending out signals to muscles from the deep unconscious level of her brain, completely out of her control. The switch is stuck on the on position.
Over the long run, those pain and anxiety signals can be really damaging and what we see in fibromyalgia is really the widespread effects of constant activation of those signals.
