Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hello, my name is Kathleen.
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And today we will be discussing the use of cannabis to treat chronic pain.
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Uh First, we will discuss different types of pain.
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The first being no deceptive pain. This is a stimulant driven sort of pain.
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So we're gonna have some
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uh tissue damage that is caused by a physical or chemical agent, such as
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uh
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temperature changes, surgery, some sort of trauma.
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You have no receptors all throughout your peripheral nervous system,
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which will get stimulated by unpleasant or painful stimuli,
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which will then uh transfer that signal
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to your central nervous system which will then
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further transfer it to higher orders in the brain and you will perceive pain.
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Uh neuropathic pain can come from damage to your
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peripheral nervous system or your central nervous system.
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Uh in your peripheral nervous system,
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you'll typically have uh some sort of lesions to
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the peripheral nervous system such as mechanical um trauma,
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metabolic diseases, uh infections, tumors,
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um neuropathic pain arising from your central nervous system
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will normally be caused by something like a stroke,
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spinal cord injuries or uh multiple sclerosis.
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So, cannabis is comprised of
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mainly two different compounds.
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Uh The first being THC, which is a psychoactive compound and CBD,
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which is non psychoactive
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and all throughout our body.
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Uh This cannabis will react with endogenous cannabinoids that we have.
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Um and the most abundant type of en endogenous cannabinoid
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receptor that we have is CB type one receptor.
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This is found all throughout the central nervous system and the peripheral
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nervous system and plays an important role in pain modulating pathways.
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And our second most abundant type of receptor is our CB type two receptor.
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This is this type of receptor is found mostly in our peripheral nervous system.
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Um and plays an important role in
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inflammation and immune
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immunological pathways.
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Um
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So,
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our therapeutic effect is really going to depend
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on our concentration ratio of THC to CBD.
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We're gonna want to higher concentration of
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CBD because there are less adverse side effects
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uh for CBD than there are for THCTHC can really uh increase anxiety,
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disorientation,
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memory loss.
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So,
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the focus of cannabis being used as a treatment
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has primarily focused on increased concentrations of CBD.
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Um though
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there is potential for CBD
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to
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treat chronic pain, we don't have a lot of studies.
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And uh some of the studies that we do have do show
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that CBD can interact poorly with
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other important medications such as immunosuppress immunosuppressants
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and heart medications.
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So there is potential there. Um
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there is only one approved CBD medication and that's uh
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used to treat an adjunct with other medications for uh
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a rare type of epilepsy.
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Um
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Another emerging cannabis
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treatment is agic
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acid. It's synthetically derived from canna cannabinoids.
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Um and it's orally active and in preclinical trials,
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it has shown to uh reduce inflammation by uh suppressing tissue scarring.
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So, there is potential for cannabis products to treat chronic pain.
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Um Though we don't have enough studies yet to really have a definitive answer.