How Does Medical Marijuana Help Spasms With Multiple Sclerosis and Spinal Cord Injuries?

Initially, consider the pertinent numbers. Well over two million individuals in this country have MS, and over fifteen million persons have a spinal cord injury. A lot of these patients suffer from aching, stiff, spasming, and cramping muscles. These symptoms may cause limited movement, insomnia, as well as pain. Medical marijuana works well for these symptoms.

Traditional medications for these symptoms often work, but can cause weakness or sedation. Patients using medical marijuana for decreasing spasticity and pain have achieved significant relief.

We don’t know exactly how medical marijuana reduces spasms. No large scale study has been done, but the smaller research trials have great results.

Multiple sclerosis involves what is thought to be a malfunctioning immune system, resulting in inflamed nerves throughout the brain and spinal cord. The fibers around the nerves are like the insulation around a power cord, and unfortunately what MS does is it destroys the insulation. Without it, nerves do not conduct necessary impulses. Symptoms then include, fatigue, depression, vertigo, incontinence, blindness, and muscle spasticity.

Muscle spasticity in Multiple Sclerosis is really common, ninety percent of people have muscle spasms in addition to cramps, aches, and painful involuntary muscle contractions. These symptoms usually get worse over time and can leave one partially paralyzed.

Typical conventional medications for muscle spams are baclofen and tizanadine. They are sedatives, causing drowsiness in addition to muscle weakness and dry mouth. When a patient has MS, muscle weakness already exists. So making it worse is not great.

It needs to be noted that there has not been a large scale study evaluating marijuana and THC. Multiple small scale studies have shown excellent results for decreasing muscle spasms along with pain. Not all patients achieved success, however, and there were some unpleasant side effects.

It may be difficult to distinguish a satisfactory result from THC due to placebo versus actual spasm reduction. Without a large scale study to partition out placebo, which can be upwards of 30% with medications, it can be tough to say for sure. These large scale results are underway in Britain, where medical marijuana is frequently used for MS.

What is it about marijuana that assists individuals with multiple sclerosis? And if it assists with MS does it also work with muscle spasms in individuals with spinal cord injury? Case reports from MS patients report very good results for spasms and pain. Is it due to the broad effects that THC gives, like anti-anxiety, along with reducing spasms? Anxiety may worsen spasms, and THC does relieve that. Also, THC does not weaken muscles. If a person has multiple sclerosis that is a problem anyway, so making it worse is not optimal.

THC via mouth may be better since the duration is longer and doesn’t contribute to lung problems. People with spinal cord injuries have muscle spasms that tend to be consistent through the day so oral intake of THC may be better than for MS, where the symptoms wax and wane. For those individuals, vaporizing or smoking marijuana may be best.

At this point, we know anecdotally marijuana works for muscle spasms. Larger clinical studies will help us learn more about the specifics and how it exactly fits into the clinical management of these conditions.

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