Does Medical Marijuana Really Help? (credit, home, live in)

[brightdoglover]

MODERATOR EDIT: This is a good topic, glad we have it started. BUT we all need to stay on topic and not get sidetracked about the legalities, rightness or wrongness, pro or con, etc, of MJ and MMJ. Be warned that serious hijacks will result in the issuance of infractions or outright banning from this site. Thank you; now, on with DOES MMJ REALLY HELP.


I am thinking of an elderly friend in CO who has increasing pain from arthritis and bone spurs that cannot be removed. To complicate it, she has COPD and is still smoking (and is 85). I know a family member of hers smokes daily and that she tried it once, I think as an experiment like having a beer as a teenager, not as a response for pain management. I asked this family member if MJ really has the medicinal effect that many people claim, and he said after 35 years of daily smoking (!) he thinks it would just be that being high made you forget about pain (he suffers from back pain).
I am going to suggest to elderly friend that she try it again for her pain, although I imagine she has already thought of it. I wonder if her COPD complicates the experiment, although I can't imagine it would hurt anymore than her continued cig smoking does. She lives near dispensaries and I wonder if the local hospital/docs have already suggested it.
Anyway, I live in a state (Mass.) that recently voted in medical MJ with lots of restrictions. Haven't heard from anyone yet who uses it medicinally. I do have a friend in a non-legal state who says it helps her with anxiety and depression and therefore she wishes she could get a medical MJ script (which I doubt would happen).
I've seen a documentary on medical MJ on network TV that showed a woman with fibromyalgia using some sort of vaporizer MJ and finding it helps her nerve pain a great deal. Pain is such a complex problem and its sources so varied, so I wonder if anyone has any info, either personal or anecdotal, with Colorado's legal MJ.

[hollyt00]

I've known two people with differing illnesses that claimed that MMJ really helped them. One said it changed her life and possibly saved it.

[DurangoJoe]

For some people, yes MMJ does help. Not all will get the relief they're looking for though. It varies with the individual. If the OP has COPD, I would suggest vaporization rather than smoking. There are many vaporizers on the market and you can find them with a google search.

You should also consider edibles. Cannabis does not need to be smoked to administer the ingredients.

[Mike from back east]

MODERATOR SPEAKING: This is a good topic, glad we have it started. BUT we all need to stay on topic and not get sidetracked about the legalities, rightness or wrongness, pro or con, etc, of MJ and MMJ. Be warned that serious hijacks will result in the issuance of infractions or outright banning from this site.

Thank you; now, on with DOES MMJ REALLY HELP.




Mike FBE speaking: I say YES, it does help. Here's my sister's story.

My sister developed PolyMyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), an inflammatory disorder that causes muscle pain and stiffness, primarily in your neck, shoulders, upper arms, hips and thighs. Symptoms of PMR usually begin quickly over a few days, and usually goes away within a year or two after treatment.

She could barely move, her husband had to help her dress, get her in/out of bed, etc. She couldn't ride her horses, which for her was like being in jail. It lasted two years. The usual Rx of steroids and other meds did not kill the severe pain.

Her neighbor gave her a joint to smoke, and she said the relief from the pain was amazing, so she kept a few around for the worst nights. She's over it now, she didn't drive her pickup truck or ride her horses for 2.5 years. She was so happy she cried like a baby when she got back on her horse.

She went through chemo and radiation for breast cancer in 2011, as if the PMR wasn't enough to deal with.

She's never been an MJ user, hardest thing she ever touches is rum and coke on karaoke nights.

But the MJ eased her pain when nothing else did, and for me, that's all the testimonial I need to believe.

[delta07]

I think just like any other medication, results will differ for the individual. I suffer from migraines and I decided to try MJ to see if it would help ease my pain. I have tried lots of migraine medicines over the years and the side effects are bad enough for me that I don't like to take them. However, the headaches are horrible, so I thought I would see if MJ could help. For me, it didn't work. I'm back to taking an Imitrix when needed and dealing with the pins and needles feeling for the next few hours.

A friend of mines mother uses MMJ to treat her IBS. For her, it's the only thing that works. She's tried many other things.

As others have stated, there are many other ways to benefit from MMJ without smoking it. If your friend is in a lot of pain and hasn't had results from conventional medicine, I say go for it. The worst that can happen is that it won't work for her. Hopefully it will though!

[lalahartma]

Yes, depending on the illness/pain. It's definitely worth a try, especially in order to avoid prescriptions drugs which often had nasty side effects.

[jwiley]

I have a friend whose mother has severe MS, the pharmaceutical drugs that she was given had severe side effects, making it very hard for her to do anything throughout the day, she now smokes daily and has the last couple of years, while not being a huge improvement from the old pain meds she was on as far as pain relief, the side effects are much lower, and my friend and his father both swear that it has extended her life as she was wanting to die when she started it.

My father in law has now had 3 battles with cancer, he is as conservative and anti-drug as they come, due to the chemo he had lost 40 pounds in about 3 months in his 1st battle with the doctors giving him a survival chance of less then 50% in the following 6 months, my brother in law convinced him to try a pot brownie, my father in law stopped losing weight. Not only did he stop losing weight he survived, and has went through the other 2 battles, he only touches it when on chemo, but he credits it with saving his life.

My wife works in home health care, she runs across plenty of elderly people that smoke daily and swear by the effects they have experienced from smoking.

Needless to say it is not for everybody, but if you know someone that is in pain or struggling through chemo, then it does not hurt to try some edibles to help with the pain. It is no worse then many of the prescription meds out there.

[brightdoglover]

I've read that absorption with edibles is less effective than with vapor or smoke. Not that I don't love brownies! But I think that if I needed medical MJ or needed to try it for an ailment, I'd go for a vaporizer. I don't smoke and when I smoked MJ as a teenager (which only made me more hungry and depressed) it was like a rake of thorns on the throat.
When I work on a dementia inpatient service, for several years, the service has been using Marinol for supposed appetite improvement and certainly for calming. It did seem effective for calming in many people. It was the medication du jour for several years, and now seems to have fallen out of favor- not sure why. Nothing reliably works with the agitation that often comes with end-stage dementia (but that's another topic). I gather Marinol is synthesized THC. I wonder if they could try another form of medical MJ now that it's legal in my state?

[CosmicWizard]

brightdoglover wrote: Does Medical Marijuana Really Help?

I cannot say with certainty that it does, because I've never personally used it in a medical scenario. Based only what actual medical users have told me, and what I have read in books, YES indeed it is quite effective. I've also read that when prohibition was being pushed by the government ( the pusher man! ), the AMA was initially against prohibition because many medical practitioners of that day recognized the efficacy of cannabis.

[wanneroo]

In some isolated cases it might, but regular use is linked to all sorts of other health problems and in many cases only results in a placebo effect. So overall I would say no it doesn't help.