THC reduces pain due to fibromyalgia in pilot study

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The effect of oral THC was investigated in nine patients with fibromyalgia in a study at the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine of the University Hospital in Mannheim. Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome of unknown origin. In the four participants who completed the three-month study pain was reduced by 67 per cent on average. All four experienced a pain reduction by more than 50 per cent.

All pain medication was stopped 3 weeks prior to the investigation. In the study, patients received a daily oral dose of 2.5–15 mg THC. Starting with 2.5 mg the dosage was increased weekly by 2.5 mg THC, as long as no severe side effects were reported. Once a week, 24 hours after the last THC medication and a day before any dose increase, an electrical induced pain was caused. Moreover, the pain intensity was daily recorded by means of a numeric pain scale with the endpoints 0 (no pain) and 10 (maximum pain imaginable).

Five of the nine participants terminated the study before reaching the maximum dose of 15 mg due to severe side effects, primarily sedation, dizziness, fatigue or continuous tiredness. The experimentally induced pain was significantly reduced by THC in a dose of 10 and 15 mg. Daily recorded pain intensity was reduced from 8.1 on average at the beginning of the study to 2.8 after three months.

(Source: Schley M, Legler A, Skopp G, Schmelz M, Konrad C, Rukwied R. Delta-9-THC based monotherapy in fibromyalgia patients on experimentally induced pain, axon reflex flare, and pain relief. Curr Med Res Opin 2006;22(7):1269-1276 [electronic publication ahead of print])


Source: IACM-Bulletin