Significant reduction of symptomatic headache by medical marijuana – Case report

Abstract

Despite the limited number of large clinical trials on the positive therapeutic effect of medical marijuana, the several thousand-year history of using cannabis in medicine and numerous reports allow the conclusion that cannabis preparations have a great therapeutic potential. The report presents the clinical case of a 35-year-old female patient treated with medical marijuana preparations due to persistent headache following neurosurgical resection of a brain tumour. Therapy with medical marijuana was started 3 years after surgery. Headache occurred several times a day and responded poorly to NSAIDs, which resulted in the patient often giving-up pharmacological treatment. The applied treatment with dried cannabis with high THC content taken by vaporization in a finally dose of 0.1 g twice a day showed a significant reduction in pain by 7–9 on the NRS within the 3 months of therapy. This observation suggests a significant analgesic effect of cannabis in the treatment of symptomatic headaches.

Keywords

• thc
• marijuana
• pain
• symptomatic headache