Medical Cannabis Helps Relieve Fibromyalgia Symptoms
/By Pat Anson
Medical cannabis products help relieve pain and anxiety caused by fibromyalgia, and improve sleep and quality of life, according to a new study of patients enrolled in the UK’s Medical Cannabis Registry.
Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood and difficult-to-treat condition that causes widespread body pain, fatigue, insomnia, mood disorders and brain fog.
The UK study of nearly 500 fibromyalgia patients found the greatest improvement in symptoms when participants took higher doses of cannabidiol (CBD) daily over an 18-month period. Higher CBD doses were associated with better outcomes compared to lower doses, and current cannabis users saw better results than those who had never tried it before.
Participants were initially prescribed a cannabis oil, but as the study progressed, most began to use a mixture of oils taken orally and dried flowers inhaled through a vaporizer. The median CBD dosage increased during the study, from 20mg a day at the start to 25mg at the end, which is considered a moderate to strong dose.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content also increased, from a median of 2mg a day at the start of the study to 112.5mg at the end – a high dose likely to cause a strong buzz. But high THC doses were not associated with an improvement in symptoms.
The UK study contradicts a recent U.S. study that found THC more effective in relieving pain than CBD. However, that study primarily involved synthetic FDA approved cannabis-based medicines, such as dronabinol and nabilone, which are approved to reduce nausea and increase appetite – not for pain relief. The UK study involved products that cannabis consumers are much more likely to use.
In the UK, fibromyalgia patients are only eligible to be prescribed “unlicensed” medical cannabis if they have failed to gain improvement in symptoms from licensed pharmaceutical medicines.
Nearly half of the participants reported mild to moderate side effects, with fatigue and dry mouth being the most common. Researchers believe the high rate of adverse events (AEs) stem from fibromyalgia’s central sensitization effects, which increase the nervous system’s sensitivity to new stimuli.
“This study found treatment with CBMPs (cannabis-based medicinal products) in fibromyalgia was associated with short to medium-term improvements in pain, anxiety, sleep, and general quality of life. There was a high incidence of AEs, perhaps due to its central sensitisation mechanism, associated with an increased susceptibility to AEs,” the authors reported in the journal Clinical Rheumatology.
Researchers say the improvement in fibromyalgia symptoms had a waning effect as the study progressed, with peak improvement at 1 month and the lowest after 18 months.
Previous studies in Israel and Brazil have also found that cannabis products improve fibromyalgia symptoms.
The amount of THC – the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis – consumed in the UK study was unusually high. After 18 months, the median dose was 112mg of THC a day, with some participants taking nearly 217mg daily.
Another team of UK researchers recently recommended that adults not consume more than 40mg of THC a week – or about 5.7mg a day. Higher THC doses are associated with increased rates of cannabis use disorder.
