Cannabis for migraine can cause rebound headaches

For the study, researchers looked at the records of 368 people who had chronic migraines for at least a year.

Washington: A recent study suggested that people using cannabis for migraine relief can develop rebound headaches, similar to overuse headaches experienced by people who use too much migraine pain medication.

The preliminary study released on March 1 and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 73rd Annual Meeting being held virtually from April 17 to 22, 2021.

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“Many people with chronic migraine are already self-medicating with cannabis, and there is some evidence that cannabis can help treat other types of chronic pain,” said study author Niushen Zhang, M.D., of Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California.

“However, we found that people who were using cannabis had significantly increased odds of also having medication overuse headache, or rebound headache, compared to people who were not using cannabis,” Zhang added.

For the study, researchers looked at the records of 368 people who had chronic migraines for at least a year. Chronic migraine is defined as 15 or more headache days per month.

A total of 150 people were using cannabis and 218 were not. Of the 368 people, 212 had medication overuse headache and 156 did not. The researchers found that the people using cannabis were six times more likely to have medication overuse headaches than those who did not use cannabis.