I never wanted to reach a point where I felt like I needed medication every single day just to survive.
However, it wasn’t my fault that I would end up in this situation.
It was a bad work accident in my 20s that finally did it to several discs in my spine. Back then I was employed by a landscaping company and was on ladders every single day trimming trees for both commercial and resident clients. After several years of doing this without any accidents, it’s easy to overestimate one’s confidence level with the work. Sadly, one day I didn’t have my ladder secured to my tree properly and I went down. I was incredibly lucky that my injuries weren’t enough to take away my ability to walk or feel anything below my neck or my waist. I got back up again despite the fall, but it meant dealing with back pain on and off for the rest of my life. Sometimes I can get by with just acetaminophen or ibuprofen, but other times I genuinely need something more than basic over-the-counter medications. I don’t want to get addicted to prescription narcotics either, so I have largely turned down prescriptions to take opiates with this fear at the front of my mind. One of the only things that has truly given me relief with my severe back pain is taking strong doses of CBD throughout the day to improve how I feel. The CBD acts on my body’s endocannabinoid system and relieves that pain that creeps up my back better than any other drug short of a real prescription opiate. At least I’m able to find relief with the CBD by itself if I take enough at any given moment.