Medical marijuana relieves migraines, epileptic seizures

Marijuana has been tried for a variety of medical conditions, including migraines, and in one of my previous post I mentioned dangers of smoking it. Medical marijuana does not have the same dangers since it is not smoked.

A study just published in the journal Pharmacotherapy involved 121 adults with migraine headaches who were treated with medical marijuana. The number of migraine headaches per month decreased from 10.4 to 4.6 with the use of medical marijuana. Most patients used more than one form of marijuana and used it daily for prevention of migraine headache. Positive results were reported by 48 patients (40%), with the most common effects being prevention of migraine headache and the second most common effect, aborted migraine attacks. Inhaled forms of marijuana were commonly used for acute migraine treatment and were reported to abort migraine headache. Side effects were reported in 14 patients (12%); the most common side effects were somnolence (2 patients) and difficulty controlling the effects of marijuana related to timing and intensity of the dose (2 patients), which were experienced only in patients using edible marijuana. Edible marijuana was also reported to cause more side effects compared with other forms. The authors concluded that the frequency of migraine headaches was decreased with medical marijuana use.

New York state just approved medical marijuana for ingestion by mouth or breathing in vapors. Medical marijuana is approved in NY for several medical conditions, including neuropathic pain, but not migraines. However, many migraine sufferers also have severe neuropathic pain over the scalp and neck. This pain is caused by irritation of the trigeminal and/or occipital nerves and manifests itself as burning or sharp and shooting sensation. To be able to prescribe medical marijuana doctors have to take a 4-hour online course. After taking this course, as I’ve discovered, it is not that simple to issue a prescription. It is done through a New York State website and requires a lot of detailed information. The patient also has to register with the State in order to be able to buy medical marijuana from the approved dispensaries. The dispensaries offer ingestible and vaporized forms of marijuana with a certain ratio of cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

Pure cannabidiol was just shown to reduced seizures by one-third in patients with intractable epilepsy, that is epilepsy that does not respond to usual epilepsy medications. This was the largest trial of its kind conducted by a group of neurologists led by Dr. Orrin Devinsky of NYU School of Medicine. The true efficacy and safety of the drug is now being evaluated in a double-blind trial, currently under way. THC is responsible for the psychoactive effects of the drug, while CBD does not cause such effects. Pure CBD (Epidiolex) is available only for the treatment of two rare conditions of childhood. The same company also makes Sativex, which is a 50-50 mixture of THC and CBD, and is approved in Europe and Canada for treatment of spasms in multiple sclerosis.

It is possible that pure cannabidiol will also be effective for pain and migraines without causing psychotropic side effects which are caused by THC.