Headaches and migraines are among the most common everyday illnesses in Europe for which doctors are consulted. One of the most common types of headache in Switzerland is the so-called tension headache, the causes of which are mostly harmless. About every 10th person living in Switzerland suffers from migraine. In addition, about 6% of all women suffer from menstrual migraine, i.e. the symptoms only occur during menstruation.
For the most part, the ailments described above are treated with common commercially available medications such as Dafalgan, aspirin or ibuprofen. However, few consumers are aware that these are not free of often risky side effects.
Unlike the painkillers just mentioned, cannabis has been used for thousands of years to relieve severe headaches. However, the prejudices and legal restrictions still prevalent in many countries prevent large-scale studies and medical research in this area to this day. A study published in The Journal of Pain in June 2020 now provides the first scientifically verified results on the effectiveness of cannabis in relieving headaches and migraines. In the following sections, we will give you an overview of these findings and show you why the great potential of the cannabis plant should definitely be used.
For the study just mentioned, data from 1306 people with headaches and 653 people with migraines who treated their conditions with cannabis were analyzed. It was found that medically prescribed cannabis inhalation, regardless of strain, dosage, or THC or CBD content, can reduce the intensity of headaches and migraines by up to 50%. The study focused primarily on the use of cannabis flowers, but also included some use of cannabis extracts (such as the increasingly popular CBD oils). It turned out that these have a much more efficient effect on headaches, especially with regard to tolerance: While the people who regularly inhaled cannabis flowers developed a certain tolerance over time, nothing similar was found with the cannabis extracts. In migraine patients, on the other hand, this difference was surprisingly not found. Furthermore, the study was able to demonstrate that regular treatment with cannabis extract ensures that their dosage can be reduced over time. The authors of the study therefore advocate that intensive research is definitely needed on the effectiveness of cannabis extracts - the potential for pain relief could be enormous!
While many common pain medications lead to sometimes severe side effects, as mentioned at the beginning, the study could not find any such side effects in the medical use of cannabis. This finding suggests that cannabis has the potential to be a low side effect and completely natural alternative to ibuprofen, dafalgan or aspirin.
Link to study: https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(19)30848-X/fulltext
The information and data that served as the basis for the preparation of this article were taken from professional articles, trade journals or studies. Medropharm is not authorized to make any healing and/or efficacy promises related to their cannabis products.
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