I thought I needed weed. As a migraineur, as we’re called, I’ve suffered from migraine headaches all my life, and I was sure medical marijuana would do the trick.
Then I read some great news: The state Department of Consumer Protection was opening three more medical marijuana dispensaries, upping the number in Connecticut to nine. And approval was given in February for six more medical conditions, in addition to the 11 that were previously qualified, that will allow sufferers to apply for a medical marijuana license.
The Migraine Research Foundation says 38 million Americans suffer from migraines, so certainly we would be in line for prescription cannabis, right?
But no.
What was the hold-up?
So I called two experts, and feeling a migraine looming, smoked some weed.
I’m not a teenager, millennial or even a 30-something, if age matters when discussing drugs. I’m an AARP member and have decades of micro-regulating my behavior to ward off migraines: Drink caffeine, but not too much; get enough sleep, but not too much; check for low-pressure weather systems; drink enough water; no red wine; try, try, to control stress.
These work — until they don’t.
I had my first migraine when I was about 8, riding home to Stamford with my father after a Mets game. My body ached, my head pounded and, running into the house, I got violently sick.
The migraines continued throughout my childhood, though I didn’t know that’s what they were. We didn’t complain in my house and, as an inward kid, I coped as best I could. A college friend finally put a name to my misery.
Some years ago, I was introduced to Imitrex — thank you, drug companies! — which usually works if the migraine is caught early. But insurance companies — thanks a lot, insurance companies — set a monthly quota. Get more migraines than your allotment and your only choice is to call in sick and ride it out.
Unrelated note on migraine etiquette: Do not tell a migraineur that you understand, you get headaches, too. Pardon the attitude, but you don’t understand — unless your headaches include some combination of stiff neck, nausea, numbness, visual blackouts and/or flashing lights and head-fracturing pain, followed hours later by equally fracturing fatigue. In which case, welcome to the migraine club!
Today, in addition to Connecticut, 22 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana. In just one are migraines a permitted condition — you’ll be shocked, shocked, to learn it’s California — though in Massachusetts, you can get weed for migraines under the chronic pain category.
So as my neck stiffened and nausea set in, I lit up a pipe, a pinch of weed, and waited.
I got slightly high, and slightly drowsy, but no relief.
Dr. John Kelly, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is frank about medicine’s general ignorance about marijuana and pain.
“The truth is, we don’t know a lot about the efficacy of smoking marijuana, we just don’t know,” he said. But, he said, “It would be totally amazing if marijuana [could alleviate] the 109 ailments” it’s prescribed for.
“You can get different strains (of marijuana),” he said, but noted, “We don’t know the impact of different potencies for different people. What happens if you have another psychiatric disorder? What happens if you’re pregnant?”
This is not to say that “expectation and wishful thinking” may have a positive effect on someone who hopes for relief, Kelly said.
Cathy Glaser, co-founder and president of the Migraine Relief Foundation in New York, was blunt: “We recommend evidence-based treatment [for migraines], and that is missing” with marijuana.
There are “so many false claims out there,” Glaser said, and little more research than “an insignificant study” in Colorado.
Though skeptical about medical marijuana’s current ability to help many migraine sufferers, the two were adamant that, as Glaser said, “We need to get on the stick and fund research.”
“Testing is coming,” Kelly said, “because we have to. We’re behind the curve in some ways.” He said researchers in Canada and Great Britain are working with Sativex, a cannabis extract, which is already being used in Europe to treat spasticity related to multiple sclerosis.
Which leads me to think that maybe I smoked the wrong kind of weed.
But at this point, who knows? To echo the experts, it would be nice if funders, and researchers, would get on the stick.
Jenifer Frank, a former Courant editor, is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Hartford.