Medical cannabis therapy may improve symptoms of low back pain in people with fibromyalgia

Help could be on the horizon for people with fibromyalgia who have low back pain, in the form of medical cannabis therapy, experts report in Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology.

A total of 31 people were treated with standard painkillers (5mg of oxycodone hydrochloride and 2.5mg naloxone hydrochloride twice a day and duloxetine 30mg once a day). After three months, the participants could opt for medical cannabis therapy and were treated for a minimum of six months.

The standard painkillers did lead to minor improvement in symptoms, but the addition of medical cannabis therapy resulted in a higher improvement in all patient related outcomes after three months of medical cannabis therapy, and this improvement was sustained at six months. In fact, the lumbar range of motion improvements at three months were even better at six months.

“This observational cross-over study demonstrates an advantage of medical cannabis therapy in fibromyalgia patients with lower back pain as compared with standardised analgesic therapy,” the study authors say. “Further randomised clinical trial studies should assess whether these results can be generalised to the fibromyalgia population at large.”

Click here to read the original research.

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