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New Guidelines Offer Recommendations for Cannabis Use in Chronic Pain Management

June 27th, 2023
Brain and cannabis

Canadian researchers develop clinical practice guidelines for cannabis use in managing chronic pain, offering valuable insight to patients and doctors.

Key Takeaways 

  • New guidelines can help doctors and patients use cannabis to manage chronic pain more effectively.
  • Researchers studied many articles to create these helpful suggestions for using cannabis for different types of pain, sleep problems, and anxiety.
  • Arthritis patients should still follow their usual treatments from trusted medical groups like the American College of Rheumatology and the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatism.

To help clinicians and patients needing better information on using cannabis to manage chronic pain, a group of Canadian researchers conducted a systematic review (an analysis of available evidence) and used it to create clinical practice guidelines for using cannabis to manage chronic pain. Their review and guidelines were published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.

This development comes as interest in medical cannabis for pain relief grows. A 2019 CreakyJoints survey found that 57 percent of 1,059 rheumatic disease patients had tried cannabis for medicinal purposes at least once. In addition, a review article by CreakyJoints and published in Current Rheumatology confirmed interest in medical cannabis among such patients is primarily due to the drug’s potential pain-relieving properties.

The growing interest in medical cannabis corresponds with the legalization or decriminalization of the substance in more states. However, there is a lack of solid research on cannabis’s health benefits, making it hard for doctors to give advice to their patients.

This is slowly changing. Studies on cannabis can be tough to do because of legal limits, but more research on using cannabis for chronic pain has been done in recent years. Patients and doctors are eager for actionable advice.

Please click the link below to read further:

New Guidelines Offer Recommendations for Cannabis Use in Chronic Pain Management

At Pain Spa, Dr Krishna is highly experienced in management of patients with chronic pain. Please contact us for further details if you are interested in having a consultation with Dr Krishna.