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Purpose of Review
The use of cannabis for the treatment of migraine has become an area of interest with the legalization of medical cannabis in the USA. Understanding the mechanisms of cannabinoids, available studies, and best clinical recommendations is crucial for headache providers to best serve patients.
Use of cannabis to alleviate headache and migraine is relatively common, yet research on its effectiveness remains sparse. We sought to determine whether inhalation of cannabis decreases headache and migraine ratings as well as whether gender, type of cannabis (concentrate vs flower), delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, or dose contribute to changes in these ratings.
Background: Medicinal cannabis registries typically report pain as the most common reason for use. It would be clinically useful to identify patterns of cannabis treatment in migraine and headache, as compared to arthritis and chronic pain, and to analyze preferred cannabis strains, biochemical profiles, and prescription medication substitutions with cannabis.
Current anti-migraine treatments have limited efficacy and many side effects. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that marijuana is useful for migraine, this hypothesis has not been tested in a controlled experiment.
Study objective: No clinical trials are currently available that demonstrate the effects of marijuana on patients with migraine headache; however, the potential effects of cannabinoids on serotonin in the central nervous system indicate that marijuana may be a therapeutic alternative. Thus, the objective of this study was to describe the effects of medical marijuana on the monthly frequency of migraine headache.
Cannabis, or ”marijuana,” has been employed in various forms throughout the millennia for both symptomatic and prophylactic treatment of migraine. This document examines its history of medicinal use by smoking and other methods in ancient cultures, including the Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman, as well as in the Islamic world, and its subsequent adoption by Renaissance and Industrial Age Europeans.
