Migraine headaches are usually tough health conditions to treat cannabis might act as a counter remedy for migraine relief as some clinical studies suggest that it may help ease migraine symptoms or possibly prevent them from starting. Migraines are triggered by emotional factors such as Stress, depression, anxiety, excitement, and shock , Physical causes such as Tiredness and insufficient sleep, shoulder or neck tension, poor posture, and physical not forgetting Low blood sugar and jet lag . Some doctors have been prescribing medical marijuana, or other cannabis extract plant such as CBD oil, for the treatment of migraine. Marijuana has been used for centuries as a natural cure for a number of conditions
What is marijuana?
The smoking form of the cannabis plant is traditionally known has marijuana evnthough nowadays other oral forms of ingestion are also called marijuana. Topical forms that are rubbed into the skin are more often known as CBD oil as CBD is the active compound. The cannabis plant is composed of over 400 different compounds (known as cannabinoids) but the two most often studied are THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol). The THC chemical is said to reduce nausea and pain, and increase appetite and also produces psychological effects like euphoria, anxiety, and altered sensory perception, which is commonly known as the “high”. CBD (cannabidiol) does not cause intoxication but rather produce sedative effects that aid in reducing pain, convulsions, nausea, and inflammation.
How Does Medical Marijuana Ease Pain?
Inside the brain and other parts of the body, there exist networks of cannabinoid receptors which consist of tiny loops of protein that affect how the body feels pain. Marijuana has natural imbedded compounds known as cannabinoids. When marijuana is used, these cannabinoids go into the body and look for the receptors. The cannabinoids also change how the receptors work, and calm down pain signals. Cannabinoids are also helpful for treatment of nausea, anxiety, muscle spasms, or other health problems.
THC is the cannabinoid in cannabis that gets most of the attention since it makes users to feel high or relaxed. But another compund extracted from cannabis is known as cannabidiol (CBD) and doesn’t make you feel intoxicated and may help ease pain. CBD has been legalized in several states for medical reasons.
How does Marijuana Work for Migraines?
There have been several researches carried out on this aspect. In a research conducted at the University of Colorado, 121 people who got regular migraine headaches used marijuana daily to prevent migraine attacks and close to 40% of them testified that the number of migraine headaches they got each month was tremendously cut in half. They used different types of marijuana, but they mostly inhaled it to ease a migraine in progress and discovered that it helped in stopping the pain
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, conseAnother marijuana research found that the active compounds in marijauan are more effective at reducing the frequency of acute migraine pain and with lesser side effects than prescription conventional medicines. The investigators administered a cannabis-based medication to the participants composed of a combination of the two active compounds in marijuana: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). It should be noted that THC is the psychoactive compound that gets marijuana users high; while CBD doesn’t get users high, but rather provides therapeutic benefits, including relieving seizures in epileptic patientsctetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Migraine patients were administered either the THC-CBD drug or 25 milligrams of amitriptyline, an antidepressant medication commonly used in treating migraines while The cluster headache patients on the other hand were administered either the THC-CBD drug or 80 milligrams of verapamil, a medicine that blocks the calcium channel commonly used for the treatment of cluster headaches. The patients who inhaled or smoked marijuana revealed that it was easier to control the amount of the drug they took in, and that they had fewer negative reactions.
Another marijuana research carried out by Italian researchers in 2017 provided enough evidence on the use of cannabis for both prevention and effective treatment of migraine. The researchers first concentrated on the proper dose of marijuana for the treatment. A group of 48 patients suffering with chronic migraine were administered oral doses with different levels of THC and CBD. The researchers witnessed that with the administration of an oral dose of 200 mg, acute pain diminished by 55 percent. In the second phase of the study, 79 chronic migraine patients were administered either a daily dose of cannabis or amitriptyline (an antidepressant commonly used as a cure for migraine). The patients were also able to use 200 mg of cannabis for acute attacks. After 3 months, it was found that those who ingested marijuana had a 40.4 percent reduction in migraine attacks compared to 40.1 percent for those who took the antidepressant. The investigators also discovered that the medical cannabis used for acute treatment tremendously reduced the intensity of pain in patients by 43.5 percent
Conclusion
These studies outlined above reinforce earlier researches proving that medical marijuana is very effective at reducing the frequency of migraines, and it adds to a chorus of research findings pointing to marijuana compounds as less risky alternatives to conventional medicines. However more clinical studies are needed to decide which form of marijuana take-in (oral, inhaled, or topical forms of marijuana) work best and for which type of migraine and at what doses to take