Pain
NIH: Patterns of medicinal cannabis use, strain analysis, and substitution effect among patients with migraine, headache, arthritis, and chronic pain in a medicinal cannabis cohort
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29797104 9/22/18
Conclusions
Chronic pain was the most common reason for use of medicinal cannabis, consistent with the statistics of most registries. Identifying differences in use patterns between migraine, headache, arthritis, and chronic pain syndromes may be helpful in optimizing crossbred cannabis strains, synergistic biochemical profiles, or dosing differences between these pain subsets. The majority of patients treating headache with medicinal cannabis were positive for migraine (88%) according to the ID Migraine™ questionnaire. This suggests that most headaches being treated with medicinal cannabis were likely of migrainous pathophysiology.
Hybrid cannabis strains were preferred across most pain groups. “OG Shark”, a high THC/THCA, low CBD/CBDA strain with β-caryophyllene followed by β-myrcene as the predominant terpenes, was the most preferred strain in the positive ID Migraine™ and headache as primary symptom groups. This could reflect the potent analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-emetic properties of THC, along with documented anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties of β-caryophyllene and β-myrcene. Since migraines also involve nausea and vomiting, the potent antiemetic properties of THC may be a reason for this preference. Vaporizing or joint use were the primary methods of use across all groups, including migraine and headache, likely reflecting the need for a quick acting inhaled or non-orally ingested therapy in migraine attacks before severe pain and nausea/vomiting become prominent.
Most patients in the pain groups reported replacing prescription medications with medicinal cannabis, the most common of which were opiates/opioids across all pain groups. This is notable given the well-described “opioid-sparing effect” of cannabinoids and growing abundance of literature suggesting that cannabis may help in weaning from these medications and perhaps providing a means of combating the opioid epidemic. There are several limitations to the data in this study, and these results require further confirmation with more sophisticated prospective study methods. However, these results may provide early insight and a framework for direction into optimizing crossbred cannabis strains, synergistic biochemical profiles, dosing, and patterns of use that may be of clinical benefit in the treatment of headache and migraine, as well as other chronic pain syndromes.
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