Conventional medicine provides very few treatment options for neuropathy. You can take painkillers or tough it out, and that’s pretty much it.
But a new study published in Supportive Care in Cancer may change all that.
Results revealed how a specific natural oil can drastically improve, even eliminate, neuropathy pain and other complications.
Scientists from three medical and academic institutions in Denmark teamed up to test the effects of cannabidiol (CBD) oil on neuropathy.
Some chemotherapy agents like carboplatin and paclitaxel (Carbo-Tax) and capecitabine and oxaliplatin (CAPOX) are known to cause severe peripheral and even central neuropathy in which swallowing is affected.
The scientists recruited 54 cancer patients who were scheduled to receive these chemotherapy agents between March and December 2021.
The participants received CBD oil and were compared with other cancer patients receiving no treatment for neuropathy.
The CBD dose was 150 milligrams twice a day for a daily total of 300 milligrams.
Participants started the treatment 1 day before the beginning of their chemotherapy sessions and continued the treatment for 8 days.
Researchers measured the patients’ progress or lack thereof via self-report questionnaires completed before the commencement of treatment and every day thereafter until the end of the 8-day period.
Researchers also performed multi-frequency vibrometry before the treatment and again after 4 days of chemotherapy.
Multi-frequency vibrometry is a scan that measures the amount of information that passes through our sensory nerves. It is a way to check whether these nerves conduct the right amount of information or too much information, as in people with neuropathy.
Can you guess what they found?
1. The CBD-treated patients showed the least amount of change on the multi-frequency vibrometry scans, indicating that their sensory nerves did not suddenly start passing inappropriate pain signals like those of the untreated patients.
2. The CBD-treated patients reported experiencing less pain.
3. The CBD-treated patients reported experiencing less cold sensitivity to touch and less discomfort when swallowing cold liquids.
4. The CBD-treated patients reported experiencing less difficulty swallowing.
5. CBD worked best for pain relief in those who received Carbo-Tax and best for cold sensitivity and swallowing in people who received CAPOX.
Whether CBD oil works equally well for diabetic neuropathy patients is not something we can definitively conclude from this study.
And CBD oil didn’t eliminate or prevent neuropathy in this study although it made it better.