Let’s get to the point. Life is busy. Between my job as a rheumatologist, my volunteer work for the ACR, and parenthood, staying organized is a challenge. I’ve tried numerous organizational strategies whose logistics failed to meet my needs. My online calendar was too small to add detail. Events I needed to track monthly or…
Cannabis arteritis mirrors thromboangiitis obliterans in its clinical and arteriographic presentation, but its relevant exposure is cannabis rather than tobacco.1 Whether cannabis arteritis is a subset of thromboangiitis obliterans or a unique pathologic entity is debatable. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive component of cannabis, is a peripheral vasoconstrictor.2 This offers mechanistic insight into how cannabis may…
As medical and recreational marijuana becomes more accessible, researchers seek creative ways to study the cannabis plant and explore the complexities of the endocannabinoid system in pain relief. Rheumatologists currently face an influx of patients asking if marijuana can help them. Here’s a look at the evolving research on cannabinoids for rheumatologic pain management and how doctors are discussing it with their patients…
SAN DIEGO—What does cannabis offer to the treatment and management of rheumatology patients and the range of pain states they experience? What do we really know about its long-term effects? These are hard questions to answer with currently available data and a reality nuanced by complications cannabis advocates don’t always recognize, according to two experts…
(Reuters Health)—Even though pain and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are among the most common reasons people use medical marijuana in the U.S., there isn’t much proof cannabis works for either one of these conditions, two research reviews suggest. That’s because there hasn’t been enough high-quality research to produce conclusive evidence of the benefits or harms…
JERUSALEM (Reuters)—Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals has partnered with Tel Aviv-based Syqe Medical to market in Israel medical cannabis for pain management that is administered with an inhaler. The companies said in a statement on Monday that this is the first time the medical cannabis sector has complied with pharmaceutical standards for inhalation, which is the most…
CHICAGO—Despite the complicated politics surrounding medical marijuana, cannabis has a wide variety of medical benefits and potential benefits, but the risks need to be understood, said Daniel Clauw, MD, director of the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan, in a session at the ACR’s 2016 State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium. Effects It’s…
PARIS (Reuters)—Paris prosecutors said on Tuesday they have begun an involuntary manslaughter investigation into a failed drug trial that left one dead and five hospitalized in January. The prosecutors’ office said the investigation had been opened to determine whether there was a criminal element in any mistakes made or whether it was simply the result…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Medical cannabis reduces chronic pain patients’ opioid use, while improving their quality of life, according to a new survey of Michigan cannabis dispensary patrons. “They report that when they make that switch they overall feel better,” Dr. Daniel J. Clauw of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, told Reuters Health in a…
PARIS (Reuters)—An initial report into a drug trial in northwestern France that left one person dead and five others hospitalized last month did not identify the exact cause, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Thursday. Touraine told a news conference that the condition of the five people who were hospitalized was improving and that…