Deans' stroke musings: Does the cannabinoid dronabinol reduce central pain in multiple sclerosis?

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Does the cannabinoid dronabinol reduce central pain in multiple sclerosis?

Well, does your doctor know the answer for central pain in stroke patients? Only 10 years old so no excuse for not knowing this. Has your doctor known any of the subjects I've written about?
http://www.bmj.com/content/329/7460/253

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effect of the oral synthetic δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol dronabinol on central neuropathic pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Design Randomised double blind placebo controlled crossovertrial.

Setting Outpatient clinic, University Hospital of Aarhus, Denmark.

Participants 24 patients aged between 23 and 55 years with multiple sclerosis and central pain.

Intervention Orally administered dronabinol at a maximum doseof 10 mg daily or corresponding placebo for three weeks (15-21days), separated by a three week washout period.

Main outcome measure Median spontaneous pain intensity (numericalrating scale) in the last week of treatment.

Results Median spontaneous pain intensity was significantlylower during dronabinol treatment than during placebo treatment(4.0 (25th to 75th centiles 2.3 to 6.0) v 5.0 (4.0 to 6.4),P = 0.02), and median pain relief score (numerical rating scale)was higher (3.0 (0 to 6.7) v> 0 (0 to 2.3), P = 0.035). Thenumber needed to treat for 50% pain relief was 3.5 (95% confidenceinterval 1.9 to 24.8). On the SF-36 quality of life scale, thetwo items bodily pain and mental health indicated benefits fromactive treatment compared with placebo. The number of patientswith adverse events was higher during active treatment, especiallyin the first week of treatment. The functional ability of themultiple sclerosis patients did not change.

Conclusions Dronabinol has a modest but clinically relevantanalgesic effect on central pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.Adverse events, including dizziness, were more frequent withdronabinol than with placebo during the first week of treatment.