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Education, Health+Wellness
Cannabis for Menstrual Pain
Learn about the benefits of cannabis for treating menstrual pain, and other symptoms associated with menstrual cycles.
Almost all women are familiar with the discomfort of menstrual cramps. For some, the pain associated with menstrual cramps is only a minor annoyance. However, our reproductive systems are different in all of us. For some women, the pain can be excruciating. It can break up our daily lives and routines. This can make it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to go to work, school, or perform regular activities. As many of these women will tell you, feeling incapacitated for a few days out of each month is enough to look just about anywhere to find relief.
Treating Cramps
This search for reducing cramps and lowering pain levels has led a great deal of women into the world of cannabis medicine. In the past, over the counter medications for menstrual pain, like Midol and ibuprofen, have been the go-to medicines for treating menstrual pain. Although these medications do have the potential to ease menstrual symptoms, they are synthetically made and come with their own risks of negative side effects.
The overuse of both acetaminophen (one of the active ingredients for pan relief in Midol), and ibuprofen have been linked to causing inflammation, ulcers, and internal bleeding. They can cause damage to the lining of the stomach, the intestines, and even the liver and kidneys. The dangers of repeatedly taking these over the counter medications are becoming more well known.
It has a lot of women looking for safer, more natural ways to treat menstrual pain. This is where cannabis comes in.
Cannabis and Menstrual Pain Research
Unfortunately, there haven’t been enough research studies focused specifically on the benefits of cannabis for menstrual pain or other menstrual symptoms. There has been investigation into the effects of cannabis for the treatment of endometriosis. A very painful condition in women, endometriosis is where the tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus, called the endometrium, grows outside the uterus. Affecting the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and the tissue lining the pelvis, endometriosis can cause abnormal or irregular menstruation cycles, heavy flows, and excruciating pain.
Cannabis and Endometriosis
One self reporting survey was collected in Australia, from women between the ages of 18 and 45, who had been diagnosed with endometriosis. The survey asked about what types of pain management systems the women were using, and how effective they were in reducing symptoms, including pain. Some of the most commonly reported methods for treating the pain was heat, rest, meditation or breathing exercises, changes in diet, and the use of cannabis or hemp.
Cannabis and hemp turned out to be among the most highly rated in how effective they were in reducing pain.
Cannabis as a natural medicine in the treatment of endometriosis, menstrual cramps, and menstrual pain. As more research into the effectiveness of cannabis in the treatment of pain is completed, researchers are showing it can help with a long list of different pain disorders.