Fibromyalgia Patients Substituting CBD for Pain Medication
/By Pat Anson, PNN Editor
With opioid medication increasingly harder to obtain, many people with chronic pain are turning to cannabis-based products for pain relief. A new survey of fibromyalgia patients suggests that cannabidiol (CBD) works well not only as an alternative to opioids, but for many other pain medications.
Researchers at Michigan Medicine surveyed 878 people with fibromyalgia who were currently using a CBD product and found that 72% of them had substituted CBD for a conventional pain medication.
Over half (59%) reduced or stopped taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), while 53% used CBD as a substitute for opioids, gabapentinoids (35%) or benzodiazepines (23%), an anti-anxiety medication that was once commonly prescribed for pain.
"I was not expecting that level of substitution," said Kevin Boehnke, PhD, a research investigator in the Department of Anesthesiology and the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at Michigan Medicine.
Fibromyalgia is a poorly understood disorder characterized by widespread body pain, fatigue, poor sleep, anxiety and depression. Standard treatments for fibromyalgia such as gabapentinoids often prove to be ineffective or have unwelcome side effects.
"Fibromyalgia is not easy to treat, often involving several medications with significant side effects and modest benefits," said Boehnke. "Further, many alternative therapies, like acupuncture and massage, are not covered by insurance."
CBD is one of the chemical compounds found in cannabis, but it doesn’t have the same intoxicating effect as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Some cannabis products contain a combination of THC and CBD, while others just have CBD.
Survey participants who used CBD products containing THC were more likely to report symptom relief and to use them as substitutes for pain medication. This suggests that THC may enhance the therapeutic benefits of CBD.
A recent Israeli study found that people with fibromyalgia who took daily doses of cannabis oil rich in THC had significantly less pain and fatigue.
Another recent study in Israel found that cannabis products – both with and without THC – reduced pain and depression in fibromyalgia patients. Like the findings of the Michigan study, about one out of five patients either stopped taking or reduced their use of opioids and benzodiazepines.
"People are using CBD, substituting it for medication and doing so saying it’s less harmful and more effective,” said Boehnke. “If people can find the same relief without THC's side effects, CBD may represent a useful as a harm reduction strategy."
The Michigan Medicine study was recently published in The Journal of Pain.
