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Can Cannabis Help Ease Menopause Symptoms?

Pot isn’t a panacea for those struggling with menopause. But it just might help with its most troublesome symptoms.
A woman in a blue shirt and dark hair holds a joint in her right hand (Photo: iStock)

“I would say, so far, menopause is ruining my life,” says Rachel Colic, 43. “Welcome to your new normal—this is just your body now.”

It’s easy to joke about menopause as Colic and I laugh over a video call, but the truth behind the smiles is all too real for those entering midlife. Between perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause, these hormonal shifts—and their accompanying symptoms—can span decades.

For Colic, that included intense night sweats, mood swings, lack of appetite, and insomnia. “I can get hot flashes all times of the day, but the night sweats are ridiculous,” she confides. “I will wake up soaked in my own sweat, I’ve completely soaked through what I am wearing and my sheets.” During perimenopause, Colic has noticed an increase in sleeplessness, sex drive, brain fog and struggles to find “the shiny side of life”.

The lack of information available is what Colic, who lives in Hamilton, Ont., finds particularly overwhelming. “This could be the next 20 years of my life. Where is the end of the tunnel? Who knows?” she says. “It leaves many of us out in the dark, searching for help and resources.”

“Menopause is different for everyone. Some women really suffer from symptoms and others have no symptoms at all,” says Dr. Michelle Jacobson from The Society of Obstetricians and Gynacologists of Canada. Initial symptoms tend to be worsening PMS and more frequent periods that can be heavy or unpredictable. Other symptoms include vaginal dryness, anxiety, depression, hot flashes, trouble sleeping, night sweats, hair loss and changes in weight and libido.

Traditional therapies to treat menopause include hormone replacement and antidepressants. But there are also natural remedies—like cannabis—to help ease the transition.

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Here’s what you need to know about cannabis and menopause.

What are natural treatments for menopause?

Depending on someone’s health history, Dr. Jacobson says there are a variety of options for people struggling with menopause symptoms. Lifestyle changes are often recommended: exercise, avoid smoking and drinking and manage your stress.

Medical cannabis is another natural route that women are exploring. Colic has been a medical cannabis patient for more than a decade, after a life-threatening car accident left her with debilitating mental and physical symptoms. Since she was already well-versed in the therapeutic benefits of cannabis and how it worked for her body, it was a “no-brainer” for Colic to try and treat her perimenopause symptoms. With mindful adjustments to her consumption habits, Colic noticed improvements to her mood, appetite and sleep.

For Michele Parrotta, who also lives in Hamilton, Ont., perimenopause was a breeze. Her periods stopped at 47 quietly. It wasn’t until she was technically post-menopausal that she started having issues. “My symptoms started about one year later: hot flashes, skin itchiness, feeling bloated all the time and my moods were very up and down,” she says.

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Cannabis wasn’t a first resort for Parrotta. She initially opted for hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which made her symptoms worse—she had mood swings, bloating and benign breast growths. After a year of HRT, she started thinking about getting a medical cannabis authorization. She had smoked pot before but never used it medically, so she spoke with a doctor, who started her on an ingestible cannabis oil. Parrotta was amazed at how her mood stabilized and physical symptoms eased.

How does cannabis help menopause symptoms?

In 2021, researchers at the University of Alberta surveyed 1,500 people in various stages of menopause to see if they were using cannabis and how it was affecting their menopause symptoms. The participants consuming cannabis for medical purposes reported improvement in sleep issues (65 percent), anxiety (45 percent), muscle or joint pain (33 percent), irritability (29 percent) and depression (25 percent).

So can weed help with menopause? At this point there simply isn’t enough scientific research to say for sure. “The utility of medical cannabis is currently controversial, and is an area that is being explored as a therapeutic option but does not have strong evidence yet,” Dr. Jacobson says.

What we do know is that medical marijuana is helping people deal with the condition’s more troubling symptoms, like sleep disturbances and mood swings, but probably not hot flashes. While studies like the one out of University of Alberta aren’t aren’t considered clinical research, they show how real people are using cannabis and how it affects their symptoms.

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“It behooves individuals, I feel, to seek out and look for alternatives that align with what they value and believe to be true for them. And I feel that medical cannabis, or more specifically cannabinoids, are absolutely a viable option to explore,” says Karp.

Cannabis works with the endocannabinoid system (ECS), which regulates and controls many important bodily functions. The ECS has numerous receptors throughout the body and can influence critical functions like memory, sleep, appetite, inflammatory and immune response. The foundation of medical cannabis is how the plant interacts with our ECS—marijuana is made up of cannabinoids like THC and CBD, which influence ECS receptors throughout the body.

How cannabis influences the ECS is the reason cannabis can give people the munchies and make them sleepy and sometimes forgetful. It is also the reason people find it helpful for treating conditions like menopause, insomnia, inflammation and diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimer's. Since endocannabinoids and cannabinoids have a similar molecular structure, consuming cannabis can do more than make us feel high—it can affect our health.

What menopause symptoms can cannabis help with?

“We don't have enough knowledge related to cannabinoids from a hormone replacement type of an intervention,” says Stacey-Anne Karp, a nurse practitioner for more than 25 years, who has spent the last five years working in medical cannabis. So, when she’s discussing menopause with patients, what they’re usually trying to target is specific symptoms, not necessarily the condition itself.

Through her work at HelloMD, a medical cannabis clinic that connects people with doctors across Canada and legal U.S. states where pot is legal, Karp commonly encounters people seeking support for symptoms relating to menopause, particularly perimenopause. Karp says the two main symptoms folks are seeking relief from are insomnia—with or without hot flashes—and anxiety.

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“Through all of this, my sleep has been very elusive. I would say cannabis has helped most with that,” Colic says. “On those nights when my mind is racing or my body is doing interesting things, it helps me get to sleep and stay asleep.”

Colic also finds cannabis useful for anxiety, improving her libido and stimulating appetite. “Cannabis heightens my senses so that I can find a better feeling, a better thought. It also helps spark my interest in [sensory] things like food or sex,” she says.

Colic prefers inhalation for managing her perimenopause, which has a more immediate onset compared to the 60 to 90 minutes it takes for edibles to kick in. While there are many ways to consume pot in her medicine cabinet, her favourite remains vaping or smoking dried cannabis flower.

Parrotta also uses cannabis via inhalation. To tackle her menopause symptoms, she prefers a 1:1 ratio cannabis oil that has equal parts THC and CBD. After stopping HRT and starting medical cannabis, Parrotta noticed a difference in her mood, sleep and general enjoyment of life.

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“I began feeling so much better. My sleep came back, and the night sweats and hot flashes really began to go away,” says Parrotta. "My mood was like night and day.”

How to talk to your doctor about cannabis for menopause symptoms

Medical cannabis has been legal in Canada for more than 20 years, but research still remains a grey area. Aside from a few studies on mice and animals, we rely heavily on surveys and case studies of people’s lived experiences as evidence of what cannabis can and can’t do.

Doctors are hesitant to suggest cannabis as a treatment option, and as a result, it is often used as a last resort once traditional treatments have failed. Medical cannabis clinics like HelloMD have become more popular, allowing people to have access to doctors who specialize in cannabinoid treatments.

Karp’s approach when starting any kind of cannabinoid therapy: “Start low, go slow, stay low.” This means starting with low concentrations of cannabis, either as a whole plant or breaking it down into cannabinoids like THC or CBD.

To ease anxiety and promote better sleep, Karp suggests starting with CBD, which can be taken orally in oils, soft gels and other edibles. These formats are easy to measure doses so folks can track and adjust how much they are taking as needed.

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“For many individuals, that’s actually enough to promote improved sleep,” she says. “If it’s not effective, as we titrate it up, if we find that it’s just not doing the trick or if we’re not achieving the outcome of improved sleep with that, then [we] bring some THC in with the CBD at various ratios.”

Starting any sort of medical treatment or alternative therapy isn’t without risk of complications. It can interact with pre-existing conditions and medications, which is why Karp suggests consulting a medical professional—especially for those with health concerns.

Menopause isn’t the same for everyone and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to treating the condition. For Colic, cannabis has made a turbulent experience more manageable. “It’s certainly not a panacea. It doesn’t help 100 percent of everything. But through this new experience with my body, it has certainly helped.”

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