Medical Cannabis
Hi everyone, has anybody taken medical cannabis for pain relief and help with sleeping ? I live in Spain where it is legal to grow 3 plants for your own use. I also am suffering with heat fatigue, 35 degrees in the shade at 9am.
Medical Cannabis: Medical Cannabis Hi everyone... - PMRGCAuk
Medical Cannabis
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Lico
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We've had this question a few times but never a good review for the efficacy. How do you find it? Not legal in the uk.Hopefully your home allows an escape from that heat. I am glued to a fan.
I’m in the u.s. one of our big suppliers here in my city says on his site that it is not compatible with prednisone. I asked my doctor, he said he had never heard of that but based on that warning from the company, would not recommend it.
It is said to increase the effect of the pred - they think of that being the side effects. But that is all any of their DMARD steroid sparers is doing. I think there is a study in Israel - and I have said repeatedly I'd like to see a study on it as a steroid sparer ...
If that’s the only side effect I am going to have I will continue, time will tell. I will update in a couple of weeks.
I did some literature research on it and cannabidol and prednisolone act on the same receptor. That is why I stopped taking it when starting with prednisolone. I told my rheumy that I would discontinue the Cannabidol to prevent competition for the same receptor. She approved it.
That will be how the potentiation works - and reduces the amount of pred you need to fill all the receptors ...
A friend if mine has given me home grown cannabis oil to be taken at night and cream to apply to my hand. So far results after 7 days, I have stopped taking sleeping tablets and the hand which I apply the cream the pain level has definitely improved. Going to continue for a month and see what the results are before I start growing my own.
in reply to Lico
What's the recipe for cannabis oil ? not that it can be grown in UK legally! I think big Pharma has put a stop to that.
piglette in reply to
I think it was put a stop to in the 1920s. Buying and owning cannabis seed is not illegal in UK. It is just illegal to grow it.
Lico in reply to
I haven’t grown or made it myself yet, although I know how to do it.
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Look at the related posts - to the right on the screen with a computer, not sure where on a phone.
To summarise: in all the years I've been on the forums I don't think I have come across anyone for who finds it works or the PMR but it can work for other things like sleep. Most people have only tried CBD products - very few have been able to smoke it legally. I think there are a couple of members who have though,
Haha, I wouldn’t be smoking it, I would be making cannabis oil to take before bedtime to help me sleep and cannabis cream to rub on joints for pain relief , unfortunately you don’t get the high, not sure if that’s good or bad🥴🥴🥴🥴🤪
In which case - all I can say is that CBD doesn't normally get too much recommendation of being particularly useful! I suppose you have to try it to find out if it helps you in any way - and it sounds as if it might ,,,
You most definitely will get a "high" from the oil. In the US they use the oil to make edibles. And while it takes an edible a couple of hours to take effect it certainly can give you a high. I tried mixing it with butter and just put a tiny bit of butter on the edge of my morning toast and boy did it hit me. (I'm a light weight). I used it for a month or more and stopped because it didn't help at all. I have since learned that one specific type help with pain better then the other. It's called indica. I've not tried it but have been told that it is very sedating.
Let us know. With evidence we could put our weight behind the campaign to legalise it here. The epilepsy lobby has been very active on this.
I have used CBD balm/ointment on my forehead and back of neck to 'ease' head pains. Works for me but may be psychological.....who knows!!
I use Delta 8 THC, legal in some of the states. It does wonders for pain, insomnia & anxiety. Unlike Delta 9, it does not get you loopy either.
I've recently learned about indica which I'm told works well for pain but is very sedating. Do you know what more about delta the kind you're talking about? I also live in the u.s. unfortunately not in a state that allows it but every state around me does. (eye roll)
Delta 8 is a form of THC. Unlike Delta 9 (the regular form of THC), it's a lot less potent, but does seem to take care of pain, insomnia, and anxiety a lot better than CBD
Where do you live? I've never heard of Delta anything. I live in Colorado in the states and it's legal here more medical and recreational use.
I also live on CO and have never heard of “Delta 8”… Thought THC was THC? We use Indica strains for relaxation. None of it helps my pain but some of the edibles with CBD and a teeny bit of THC help my husband with epileptic seizures. It still gets me rather high…not amenable for sleeping. :))
Delta 8 THC has a slightly different chemical structure than Delta 9 THC. Compared to 9, there are only trace amounts of 8 in the plant, and these can be very hard to extract. Luckily, 8 is very easy to synthesize.
8 is popular in states where cannabis has not been legalized. It's something of a legal loophole as the original Federal law prohibiting cannabis use mentioned 9 specifically, but not 8. Laws are rather crazy though - there are states where both are legal, neither is legal, 1 is legal, and the other is legal.
I’m glad to hear you’re having good results. I recently bought a small bottle of Delta to test out from the Colorado company I use for my CBD oil.
My rheumatologist says no. I live in Canada where we have lots of supply and legal access.
I take CBD tincture at bedtime, to help sleep from an old neck injury. Works well, and no side effects with Prednisone, as far as I know.
Hello, if you’re willing to go privately in the uk then you can get the real medical CBD oil. We went down that route for my elderly mum who has osteoporosis and complex gut issues. She has severe pain and we wanted to see if it would help with her pain as she can only tolerate paracetamol. If you go this route you are advised by a medical doctor who accesses all your medical history via GP records and considers whether he thinks you are eligible and whether he thinks it’s safe for you to try it and at what dose. I would recommend this route if anyone is interested as you get a sound medical approach that considers your needs and your medical history and they will tell you if there are any reasons that you shouldn’t try it. The initial consultation is expensive but there after it’s not bad and they ask you to book a review every 6 weeks to see if it’s working or whether you need to change the dose. My mum had 2 oils, a daytime and an evening. It definitely helps with sleep no question! But for her it didn’t make a significant difference to the pain so she stopped in the end. You can google The Medical Cannabis Clinic. There are a couple in London. It was my sister in law who lives in Lanzarotte who told me how marvellously it works for her that put us on to it. She has a very sever auto immune disease called Vegeners ( not sure if I’ve spelt that correctly) and has been seriously ill with it. She’s been taking the oil for 2 years now and swears by it. She also says she sleeps like a baby with it. Interesting!
Wegeners? Now known as granulomatosis with polyangitis (named after a German doctor, W in German is pronounced VAY)
mayoclinic.org/diseases-con...
That's the one - thankyou.
Thank you Judith, will definitely try it, been struggling to sleep for the last 3 years.
I've been vaping CBD since diagnosis of PMR. In the week before I started prednisolone therapy it changed me from being rooted to the armchair with pain and stiffness and unable to climb the stairs unaided to relative mobility.
I was able to get out of the armchair and slowly climb the stairs within hours.
In retrospect it seemed to help me more with stiffness rather than pain, even now when I'm down to 5.5mg and complete lack of pain and stiffness during the day I still wake once at night with stiffness and some discomfort in my thighs. A few minutes vaping and I'm able to get back to sleep.
Maybe it's partly psychological, I don't really care as it helps me but I know that others are not helped by it. I have noted that those who have tried cbd without success have used oils and tinctures rather than vaping. As a dedicated non-smoker I admit I was a bit reluctant to try it initially.
This is my personal experience with cbd and not a recommendation to try it.
Based on my extensive research I decided it wasn’t worth it and I could spend the money on something else. I tried a good quality CBD oil for about 4 months pre diagnosis and pred. No help. I then tried it alongside pred for about 2 months. It didn’t seem to help at all. And I will admit I really wanted it to help so was predisposed to thinking I was benefiting.
Did it work for you ☀️☀️☀️☀️
In Belgium Cannabidol is over the counter available. I took it a month before my appointment in the hospital where they concluded that my pain and stiffness were due to PMR, after eliminating other cause by medical exams, X-ray and echo. I got prednisolone 20 mg/day and as of that moment I stopped taking Cannabidol. It had been helping me to wait for the appointment but real relieve came within 48 hours after starting with prednisolone.
I am a daily vaper of cannabis, I grow my own, (it is legal in Vermont). A few pros and cons: I have not noticed any side effects since taking prednisone. I always get a great long adventurous sleep. It does help me cope with heat. It allows me to appreciate life more, (especially nature), and to stop complaining. Some cons: I don't feel it helps with any kind of pain. And it can make me a bit paranoid if I encounter strangers. So I will not indulge if I have to leave my property. This sounds like I might be a hermit........good for isolation.
good question i was thinking the same. Canada allows cannabis retail and private growing. cannabis oil is supposed to help inflammation and sleep issues. going to try cannabis infused gummies 2.2mg thc (very low dose) once a day (aftersupper) for sleep relaxation. will post results
CBD, with or without THC, those are 2 different beasts. High THC products may have low CBD, and vice versa. As far as I know, THC is great for pain relief. I swear by it and it's clearly been part of my miracle recovery from GCA, PMR and a bunch of other stuff. But, THC is not the same as concentrated CBD in a bottle. As a standard, CBD switches OFF certain receptors in the liver that need to be switched ON in order to process f.e. prednisolone. Thus, when taking CBD, your liver goes 'to sleep", for a while, leaving the preds unprocessed and excreted in vain. When taking several medicines on different moments of the day it becomes impossible to fit CBD into that program without that interaction. There are patients that have such 12 hour windows between medication, but even then there is little data on how much is too much, and what exactly the half-life is for CBD. If you are clearly depending on getting a fixed dose of meds every day, that may not be an acceptable risk. Now, I am a big fan of all of this alternative treatment and CBD is right up there with the best. However, this "sleepy liver syndrome" is a real issue and by all means and standards should absolutely be on the main label AND in the little print manual (that nobody over 50 still manages to read) . So, no matter how motivated I was, I ended up not finding out whether CBD can cure PMR because I gave priority to my other meds. Instead, after years of endless pain and near-ineffective drugs, I went to see a Chinese med doctor and he cured me within 2 months. Go figure.
Was it PMR or GCA which the chinese med helped?
Just to clarify, When I started the herbs, my GCA was barely dormant. Had a 6 week flair right after big surgery and it was THEN that I started the herbs. Thus, the doctor was actively treating the "cause" of both the GCA and PMR. He advised me to park my LDL questions until he had results from the PMR/GCA treatment. I started with a quick 2-week taper-down of my preds from 5 to 0, while also decimating all the various benzos and opiods. I did not stop the statins or the plavix for the obvious repeat-stroke-risk reasons. It allowed for a much clearer path ahead, allowing for better comparison. The herbman worked in tandem with all the advanced bloodwork from the hospital. Also important to know. OK, back to the question; What the massage therapy, combined with the chinese meds "cured" was effectively my body-wide crippling PMR pains and my spiraling anxiety disorder. The latter was also causing increased muscle cramps in neck and shoulders leading to increased hernia- and muscle pains. That's all gone now. It showed me once more the rather unbelievable power of psychosomatic connections. The herbs were supposed to treat for insomnia as well, but the order of "things cured" was confusing.. The first month I was very hesitant, cynical and not impressed by the rather expensive meds. I suspected that the opium in the mix did a lot of the heavy lifting. basically, by the time evening had come, I was tired and drowsy from (I think) the opium, and it allowed for 2 sessions of some 3-4 hours of sleep with a 2-hour nightly break. Better than nothing, and completely herbal. But not great. Then, around the 2nd month it felt as if the the herbs worked real well for pain and anxiety. I also found out that the doc had silently removed the opium from the 2nd month mix, so now it was getting interesting. Beginning the third month I was starting to be pain-free, and the anxiety seemed gone, even if it was time to go to sleep while not being able to sleep. Still, even without anxiety, not sleeping was not good, but with all other ailments gone, I had a better sense of what exactly I was feeling, and it now felt as if it was the Chinese meds that were keeping me awake. Confusing.. So, since I was pain free, with just insomnia left to deal with, I tapered down the herbs to 0 within a week. That made me sleepy while pain free. Been sleepy and pain free for nearly 6 months now. And no more panic attacks, dark moods and despair anymore. What it also cured was (undiagnosed) adrenal deficiency, or something that resulted in the same symptoms. They never did find out why or what. Normally I am hyperactive on a level that would drive other brains over the edge. Mostly mentally, but also in my daily life, with never ending bouts of high productivity. My medical condition had stripped me from all that, leaving me without any motivation to physically do anything while mentally short-circuiting due to the incapacity to think quickly or clearly, leading to deep depression. That all got 'cured" halfway month 3. I am aware that all the demons are still there, mostly dormant, as long as I ensure to hold the still-fragile balance. For that balance, the insomnia needed to go. So, I went back to Benzo's, but merely half a Clonezapam before going to bed. That was 80% effective and gave me a good 5 hours of sleep. Later, a friend of mine brought a surprise bottle of Melatonin. I now take one of those at night, and it works just as well, maybe even better. I have been near the 6 hour sleep mark for a while now, and that is very good. They don't damage liver or kidneys, which is a big bonus. In the end, I still find it all a bit too-good-to-be-true, thinking it may all have been a coincidence, but I can't make the case: 3 years of endless pains, fruitlessly downing thousands of tablets, all came to a screeching halt in the 2-3 months of shoulder massage, Chinese herbs and melatonin. After being on crutches for a year, with a wheelchair already parked in the hallway, I am running up and down flights of stairs again, fit, with a new hip. (the old one got eaten by prednisolone) I also have the motivation to fly up and down stairs, which is at least as important. My LDL issues remain an issue, despite living "my best life", and I am still taking a statin a day. Chinese meds could not help me there. I tried, kept the bloodwork in check, and failed. The herb doc had already warned me it was a longshot. Good thing is they don't give me muscle pains. I also still take 1 plavix, but once every 2 days. After 14 small and big ischemic strokes I am happy to report no more strokes for over a year. I am up before the sun and mostly sleep before 12. I just finished building a museum by hand, working 4 or 5 hours a day with 4 or 5 long breaks in between the hours. Not perfect, but I am happy enough. True, I am one of the younger ones here in this forum and no doubt my age 53 has improved my chances of recovery. It is also not sure how long it will all last. But, none of us ever do.
What an interesting story. Thank you for sharing it. I only have secondhand information about Chinese medicine but what I have seen impressed me. In the past few years two men of my acquaintance developed cancer, and although both of them died (I think inevitable given their initial diagnoses) both of them credited the Chinese medicine with giving them several more years with a higher quality of life. One of them did particularly well and two days before his death four years after being told he had three months he was seen up a ladder doing some work on his house! He had taken all the various Western treatments available to him, I believe he was beyond surgery when the cancer was discovered (pancreas) but his wife has always said it was the Chinese medicine which made him feel well enough to be able to continue to enjoy a reasonable quality of life.
I think you need to clarify whether you are talking about THC or CBD. If you are growing your own legally restricted plants I assume it will be THC, although according to Google it is possible to extract your own CBD oil (cannabidiol), especially if you use hemp flowers. Hemp, the plant, as distinguished from marijuana, should be legal everywhere (you don't get high on hemp) so you wouldn't be limited to a handful of plants as you are with the psychoactive strain.
I used CBD/THC Gummy Drops to help me sleep. The doctor had given me Ambien to help me sleep. After several months of taking Ambien I had to start upping my dosage for effectiveness. I did not want this so tried the Gummies to help me sleep and get off of Ambien. It worked! I took the Gummies about a year and then stopped to see if I could sleep on my own. I have now been sleeping like a baby naturally.
You do need to take the Gummy 2 hours before you want to sleep.
I might add that I am on monthly infusions of Actemra and down to10 mg of Hydrocortisone. Started 3 1/2 years ago on 60 mg of Prednisone. I have PMR/GCA.
I was talking about THC.
A word of caution on the Gummies: You must have a very reliable source to be absolutely certain of the dosage. It is too easy for someone to say, it has such and such percentage of THC, and almost impossible for you to test it, without ingesting first. Please allow me to tell a first hand story on them. I have made Gummies in the past, and this one patch was pretty perfect, until one morning, I decided to take a nibble of the "scrapings from the pan", which I had saved for some reason. I went about the activity of going to my barn right across the road not thinking much more about it. In about fifteen minutes, I started to feel something coming on. It struck fast and hard. In five or ten minutes, I was having the whirlies, (which I am not fond of). I went back outside, and quickly found I could not walk, my whole world was spinning upside down and all around. I don't know how I made it across the road to the house, but I did, and managed to climb the stairs to my bedroom, where I dropped down on the bed and there I stayed for about eight hours in utter derangement.
My advice is to start with a much smaller amount than what is recommend, and wait twenty or thirty minutes, and see how you feel. You can always take more, but you can't take less if you have swallowed it. Everyone's body and mind reacts differently. I am more sensitive to THC since pred.
I trialled it for 6 months but got no pain reliefs. I do think my sleeping was a bit better. ¡Mucha suerte!
PS I was on both broad-spectrum CBD oil and minute doses of THC. Even so, the latter left me with constant mental blanks. The 2 were costing me GBP175 every 3 weeks. I went through legal channels - a licensed clinic in London.
I have consumed cannabis here in Canada, first for 8 year to combat a workplace injury (PTSD), as I did not want to take the medication (zoplicone) my former GP prescribed. Cannabis certainly helped with getting to sleep and staying asleep, definitely a game changer as I was having sleep disturbances often as well as night terrors. It also helped with mood (a calming effect), and believe it or not, it helped with my paranoia as I was always on high alert (I do understand some folks experience paranoia when they consume).
Eventually I left my career early, at age 55, got married and moved and 18 days after moving my PMR symptoms emerged. 5.5 months of fear, pain and worry followed until I was diagnosed and started on pred. I continued to consume marijuana and found it really did have a calming effect on me, and once again helped with sleep, but unfortunately did not address the pain/stiffness/inflammation. While on my starting dose of 20mg, I experienced intense emotions, mood swings and sleeplessness, so it did help in this regard.
I’ve tried CBD in a few forms with no results to speak of. Here in Canada it’s legal to grow and purchase medically and recreationally. However this industry needs to be better regulated and more research performed to study both substances (cannabis and CBD) for their effectiveness, thus legitimizing it if it proves to indeed provide relief. There have been some documented successes with regard to reducing seizures in patients, but that is one specific population.
Now people are ordering products online that have all different levels of quality. Seems to me Canada will provide a huge sample size n=many Canadian consumers. Wish we could learn more about this plant and it’s extracts scientifically and shine some light on this question.
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