Women do not have it easy. Every woman during certain ages experiences they’re monthly, but up to 20 percent of women experience painful cramps. This is known medically as dysmenorrhea, making it difficult to enjoy their daily activities. Add menopause, UTIs, and other issues and it is a menu of suffering while also trying to lead a life. A study reveals women would use cannabis to treat gynecological condition, from from menopause to menstrual pains.
Published in the Journal of Women’s Health, the study shows that women have a history of using cannabis to cope with chronic pelvic pain, menstrual cramps and pain associated with gynecological cancer. “A larger proportion of women who reported ever using cannabis were willing to use cannabis to treat conditions commonly seen in gynecological practices compared to never-users (91.6% vs. 64.6%),” says Leo Han, MD, MDH, and one of the lead authors of the study.
Authors of the study theorize that this willingness to give cannabis a shot could be influenced by the relative safety associated with cannabis use and with the negative side effects that are common when using opioids for pain management. It’s important to note that conditions like endometriosis are infamously difficult to diagnose and treat, resulting in more and more women being willing to try alternate methods of treatment.
According to Journal of Women’s Health Editor-in-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, the study found that “a large proportion of those women who had never used cannabis were willing to try it to treat gynecological pain. Fewer, but still a substantial percentage, would use it for procedural pain or other gynecological conditions.”
RELATED: Women With Menopause Now Turning To Cannabis For Treatment
While cannabis’s medical acceptance remains a novelty, the use of cannabis for treating menopause and menstrual pain has become more common over the years. According to data presented to the North American Menopause Society in September, one in three women with menopause use cannabis to treat their symptoms.
Cannabis products for treating menstrual pain and heightening sexual arousal have quickly grown into a profitable market, including bath soaks, cannabis tampons, lubricants and more.
