Reefer MEDness

Reefer MEDness


E44 - Gaba Gaba High!

January 28, 2020

Ian Mitchell is an emergency physician, the Site Scholar for the Kamloops Family Medicine Residency Program and is occasionally photographed teaching whole rooms full of people to stick their fingers in their ears while opening their mouths really wide like they are in a silent scream.  He caught our interest with an article and talk he did about gabapentin vs cannabis.  Gabapentin was originally developed as a seizure medication, but it wasn't really good at that.  Now it is routinely used for migraines, back pain, diabetic nerve pain and a variety of other conditions.  There isn't great evidence for gabapentin and all its uses.  Cannabis is just gaining the evidence it needs to show it is good for all different types of pain and other conditions.  But it is still shunned by mainly clinicians.  Is it fair the gabapentin is commonly used and cannabis is not?  Plus we go down a cool rabbit hole into some novel uses of ketamine.

Music by:
The Ramones - https://www.ramones.com/
(Yes we got a SOCAN membership to use this song all legal and proper like)
Additional Music:
Desiree Dorion
http://www.desireedorion.com/
Marc Clement
http://marcclementmusic.com/
Links:
A Tale of Two Therapies - Ian Mitchell on Medium - https://medium.com/@drivmitchell/a-tale-of-two-therapies-gabapentin-and-cannabis-5dfd109ada82
YouTube of Ian Mitchell's Talk: https://youtu.be/T0lPM8zwTiM