Dealing with stiff, cramping muscles, and daily aching is just another way of life for 2.5 million people who live with MS. Another 15 million people who suffer from spinal chord injuries have similar pains on top of limited movement and the lack of sleep they most desperately need.
Many of the conventional medications can reduce the patients discomfort-yet taking them rarely provides complete relief. Often the drugs cause weakness, drowsiness, and other side effects that some patients find intolerable such as always being constipated.
Given this outlook, it is not hard to understand why some people with multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries have sought relief through marijuana as it has shown to reduce pain and muscle spasms.
Marijuana also aided in reducing the patients nausea as well as providing a more restful sleep. A survey done in 1982 found that 21 of 43 patients with spinal chord injuries found marijuana helpful in their many discomforts, while a 1997 study found that all of the 112 MS patients surveyed found marijuana useful in reducing spasticity (this is when the muscles tense up toward reflexively and resist stretching) and pain.
This is not to say that most people with multiple sclerosis find relief with marijuana but only that the marijuana users among them do.
test done with animals show that marijuana helps reduce spasticity. Spasms are thought to occur in the brain where movement occurs, including the cannabinoid receptors.
One experiment showed that rodents become more animated under small doses od cannabinoids and less active when they get higher doses.
Users also state that the drug affects their movement by making their body's sway back and fourth.
The exact process in which cannabinoids exert these effects remains unknown. Despite the suggestive findings and the depth of anecdotal evidence, marijuana's antispasmodic properties remain largely untested in the clinic.
Very few reports are helpful because they are limited in the amount of people and in general hard to find.
Still, the lack of good universally effective medicine for muscle spasticity is a compelling reason to continue exploring cannonaded drugs in the clinic. - 14915
Many of the conventional medications can reduce the patients discomfort-yet taking them rarely provides complete relief. Often the drugs cause weakness, drowsiness, and other side effects that some patients find intolerable such as always being constipated.
Given this outlook, it is not hard to understand why some people with multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries have sought relief through marijuana as it has shown to reduce pain and muscle spasms.
Marijuana also aided in reducing the patients nausea as well as providing a more restful sleep. A survey done in 1982 found that 21 of 43 patients with spinal chord injuries found marijuana helpful in their many discomforts, while a 1997 study found that all of the 112 MS patients surveyed found marijuana useful in reducing spasticity (this is when the muscles tense up toward reflexively and resist stretching) and pain.
This is not to say that most people with multiple sclerosis find relief with marijuana but only that the marijuana users among them do.
test done with animals show that marijuana helps reduce spasticity. Spasms are thought to occur in the brain where movement occurs, including the cannabinoid receptors.
One experiment showed that rodents become more animated under small doses od cannabinoids and less active when they get higher doses.
Users also state that the drug affects their movement by making their body's sway back and fourth.
The exact process in which cannabinoids exert these effects remains unknown. Despite the suggestive findings and the depth of anecdotal evidence, marijuana's antispasmodic properties remain largely untested in the clinic.
Very few reports are helpful because they are limited in the amount of people and in general hard to find.
Still, the lack of good universally effective medicine for muscle spasticity is a compelling reason to continue exploring cannonaded drugs in the clinic. - 14915
About the Author:
For the past three decades, Dr. Julian Reindhurst has studies the medicinal benefits of marijuana. He currently has a blog that gives the historical perspective of how marijuana seeds benefited other ancient civilizations. He also has a website site that looks at the medicinal benefits of the marijuana seed.
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