This week I had my first surgery that didn’t involve coming home with a baby. I’m not going to lie, I was scared. Scared of anesthesia, scared of pain, scared of the recovery. Surgery is scary. I’m grateful to have had a great team of nurses, anesthesiologists and doctors who all made the experience a positive one. Though there is still my pain management post-surgery and recovery to address. I had no desire to take opioids of any kind, so after my umbilical hernia surgery what could I take to manage pain and inflammation? Abdominal surgery is one of the hardest because everything you do involves your core; breathing, laughing, stairs, sitting on anything including the toilet, so pain management is a real issue.

With CBD being used more and more as mainstream medicine it was an easy conversation to have with my medical team. Prior to surgery, I discussed aftercare with my team. I asked if I can use CBD and Light therapy as opposed to autoinflammatory medications and opioids. My doctors were incredibly open to CBD as a viable option. Together we worked to outline dosing and light therapy treatments that would best benefit my healing. We even discussed dietary efforts to accelerate healing and “movement” since anesthesia promotes constipation.

I’m happy to report I have been able to manage pain completely by using CBD as medicine and 3 light therapy treatments of 20 minutes each a day along with 1 Tylenol at night. But I’m not the only one who has seen results like this. I had a client who had knee surgery who started on opioids but they weren’t helping. She switched to a higher dose CBD regimen along with a home-use light therapy pad. After doing so she reported a significant decrease in pain and a rapid increase in healing and regaining normal range of motion. We have also had a gentleman client who reported similar effects from a shoulder injury where the pain is so severe it wakes him at night. Opioids were not an option for him as they cause a negative reaction so he also consulted his physician and worked with our team to develop a regimen. He’s reported diminished pain to allow him to have normal function as well as a good night’s sleep.

To learn about studies being done on CBD post-surgery and for pain management follow these links:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03825965

https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2019-01-07/does-cbd-work-for-pain-relief

If you have stories of how you’ve used CBD after injury or surgery, please email us directly at info@getmesomegreen.com we’d love to hear from you.