Osteoarthritis pain is one of the most common types of pain patients can experience. It manifests as a combination of inflammatory, nociceptive and neuropathic pain. In the standard medical model each of those pathways requires modality-specific analgesics, adding up to more medicines.
However, the human body has a built in endocannabinoid system (ECS) which has been shown to affect each of those 3 pathways. This means that marijuana (cannabis) should likely provide relief for all 3 types of pain in the osteoarthritic patient.
The authors of this summary state that there is clinical evidence supporting the role of the ECS in osteoarthritic pain. Hopefully as marijuana laws become less restrictive, more studies can be done on the benefits of marijuana and osteoarthritis.
