Can marijuana help treat headaches?

Unless you suffer from headaches, especially migraines, you don’t know how disabling they can be. The throbbing pain, the nausea, the loss of energy and most of all the constant pain make life difficult. Science has yet to fully understand why they occur and how best to treat them. So can marijuana help treat headaches?

In 2022, data from a study on helping those who are suffering was published. Medical marijuana results in a long-term reduction in migraine frequency in 60% of treated patients and is associated with reduced disability and migraine medication use. Additionally, 94% of users experienced symptom relief within 2 hours of the observation window. Men had greater relief than women.

Recent research suggests that marijuana could become a new option for patients. A study published in 2017 found that “headache disorders are common, debilitating, and in many cases inadequately treated with existing treatments.” Before cannabis became illegal in the early 20th century, prominent doctors of the time praised its use Cannabis to treat headache disorders, the review says. Doses at the time were typically administered orally two to three times daily in an attempt to minimize poisoning.

The review continued: “It seems likely that cannabis will emerge as a potential treatment for some headache sufferers.”

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A 2019 study by researchers at Washington State University provided some data on this possible treatment. Scientists used self-reported data via the Strainprint app to collect information about how patients used cannabis to treat headaches and migraines. On average, participants reported that inhaling marijuana resulted in a 47% decrease in headaches. Migraine sufferers reported that their pain intensity was reduced by almost half.

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Marijuana use did not trigger an “overuse headache,” in which over-the-counter medications cause the headache to worsen instead of getting better. The researchers also found no significant difference in pain reduction depending on the type of marijuana participants smoked. Different concentrations of THC and CBD had no significant effect, suggesting that other properties or cannabinoids in the marijuana plant (there are more than 100 cannabinoids in cannabis) cause pain relief in patients.

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In both cases, the studies noted that more research is needed before accurate advice can be given about using marijuana to treat headaches.

“I hope this research will motivate researchers to take on the difficult work of conducting placebo-controlled trials,” Carrie Cutter, the lead author of the 2019 study, said in a statement. “In the meantime, this will give patients and their doctors at least a little more information about what they can expect from using cannabis to treat these conditions.”