Can medical cannabis cut migraines in half?

A recent U.S. study suggests that medical cannabis could reduce pain by nearly half in patients suffering from chronic headaches or severe migraines.

«The use of cannabis to relieve headaches and migraines is relatively common, but research on its effectiveness remains scarce,» explained researchers at Washington State University. «We sought to determine whether inhaling cannabis reduced headaches and migraines, as well as whether gender, the type of cannabis (concentrate versus flower), THC, CBD, or dose contributed to changes in these sensations.»

The researchers took a relatively modern approach to recruiting a group of patients for their study. Data were collected from Strainprint, a Canadian app that allows patients to rate their symptoms on a scale of 1 to 10 before and after using cannabis for medical purposes. Using this app, researchers collected data from 1,300 patients who used the app more than 12,000 times to regularly report changes in their headaches. The study also included data from 653 migraine patients who had used the app more than 7,400 times to track their symptoms.

«We wanted to address this issue in an ecologically valid way, which involves examining the cases of patients who use whole-plant cannabis to treat themselves at home and in their own environment,» he said declared Carrie Cuttler, lead author of the study. «This is also a very large dataset, which allows us to generalize more appropriately and accurately to the broader population of patients who use cannabis to treat these conditions.»

The study indicates that 88.1% of migraine sufferers and 89.9% of people with headaches reported that cannabis use helped relieve some of their pain. App users reported a 49.6% reduction in migraine pain and a 47.3% reduction in headache severity. Slightly more men (90%) reported that cannabis helped relieve their headaches than women (89.1%).

Interestingly, the study showed that these results were consistent regardless of the type or strain of cannabis used. The researchers had expected that specific concentrations of THC or CBD would be more or less effective in treating headaches, but the study revealed that each blend appeared to be equally effective. «Since cannabis is composed of more than 100 cannabinoids, this finding suggests that various cannabinoids or other compounds such as terpenes »could play a major role in relieving headaches and migraines," the authors concluded.

The study showed no signs of «medication-overuse headache,» a side effect in which long-term headache treatment can actually worsen headaches or migraines over time. The researchers noted that some participants began to develop a tolerance to cannabis, requiring higher doses to maintain the same headache-relieving effects.

Cuttler acknowledged that the study had its limitations, particularly because it relied on self-reporting. «I suspect the efficacy may be slightly overestimated,» she explained. «I hope this research will motivate researchers to undertake the difficult task of conducting placebo-controlled trials. In the meantime, it will at least give patients treated with medical cannabis and their doctors a little more information about what they might expect from cannabis in managing these conditions.«