'Cannabis eases pain of arthritis'

'Cannabis eases pain of arthritis'
9 November 2005

Cannabis can significantly ease the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, a study has found.

Taken in medicine form, the Class C drug was shown to improve the pain of movement, pain at rest, quality of sleep and ease inflammation.

Scientists insist the element of the drug which creates a potential "high" is an essential therapeutic component of the treatment and cannot be removed.

The authors of the study are now calling for a larger trial to back up their findings to help the 600,000 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers in the UK.

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/PA_NEWA13922571131442428A00?source=PA%20Feed

and I lose more sleep which compromises my health further in serious ways, I am thinking I might wanna try it now.

A law enforcement pal says the reason it is illegal is that it stays in fat cells for weeks, so there is no way to test to see if a person is under the influence at a particular time, say while driving. I say it is because it offers so much benefit with fewer side effects than the drugs Big Pharm makes billions selling.

And while pot heads can be annoying and boring to the extreme, they are not typically violent like drunks can be. A study done back in the 90s on people in prisons for violent crimes showed the 'gateway drug' for them was NOT pot but plain ol booze.

Meanwhile, walking gets more difficult for me, my hands are getting dangerously close to leaving me unable to make my little tiny income and the lack of sleep makes me more accident prone. Good thing I don't drive much as the lack of sleep slows my reflexes and makes me a danger.

Yeah, gotta keep that weed illegal... :eyes:

Now I can have an excuse, oh wait, never mind.

Hurts like hell though, I wish something legal would help.

We need to legalize these drugs, this war on drugs is just stupid.

I haven't smoked a joint in almost 30 years. Long before I had arthritis, but it would probably be better than percocet, vicodin, oxycontin, and Stoli that I sometimes need now.

Interesting... I never noticed...

never ever smoked cannabis (really, lol.. I swear)

But I do have arthritis and it's causing me daily pain if I don't take medication (yeah I had Vioxx, great, thanks!) which isn't really very good your kidneys / liver.

So as a total noob to drugs... how much would you have to smoke to have a therapeutical effect?
Can you also eat it? (as in cakes? I'm non-smoker)

You can let pot simmer in melted hot butter to make pot butter, which you can use for cake or brownies.

As for amount smoked in order to lessen pain, it depends, of course.

especially now with dropping temperatures. As the temperature starts to dip my dogs are getting shorter walks and more time in the backyard. It would be wonderful to be pain free for even a few hours. I would also give almost anything to be able to walk more than a few blocks or better yet I'd love to break out and go for a long run like I did in my youth.

I'm not going to bore anyone with my medical problems, but I deal with chronic pain that is at least partially caused by arthritis. One of the things that I tried was pot, and you know what? It didn't work. And it isn't because I had Big Dawg's problem. (Didn't know how to operate a joint)
When I was a kid I smoked so much pot that the Zig-Zag man had a tattoo of ME on HIS arm.
I had quit smoking pot when I grew up, but tried it again when attempting to deal with the pain. Well, it didn't help. Plus it has all those calories. The only thing it did was to help mitigate some of the emotional exhaustion from the pain. What DID help was 160mg of Oxycontin per day. Later on I got a TENS unit, which cut my medication needs by 75%.

I think that if people want to smoke pot, they should be able to do so legally, subject to the same rules as alcohol. (Not under 21, not while driving, etc.)
I just think that a lot of this medical marijuana stuff is just an excuse and it's undermining the battle by cancer patients to get medical marijuana for THEIR ailments.

I had one recommended to me for use during my labor - as it turns out I didn't use it, but I thought the theory behind it is fascinating.

I didn't understand something in your post - about calories. Are you saying smoking pot delivers calories to you? Or are you referring to the pot butter foods?

Think about it a minute. You'll "get it". ;)

Well, asking dumb questions at least has the unexpected benefit of making me feel younger than I actually am!

Doesn't work in my browser.

It helps calm muscle spasms better than Neurontin for my wife, it doesn't so much STOP the pain as you FORGET the pain is there for a certain period of time, depends on strength of the pot and other painkillers you may use.

Bruce

And since pain usually = more tension which usually = MORE PAIN, breaking that cycle intermittently would be a HUGE HELP for many chronic pain sufferers. We would probably have less secondary problems due to stress and lack of decent sleep if we could just be helped to forget pain from time to time.

After a rather painful surgery, I stopped taking my prescribed meds (a combo of extreme pain killers and muscle relaxers) because they were screwing with my concept of time. I smoked a few joints a day, and although I was completely aware that the pain was still present, I could focus my mind elsewhere. Like TV. I think this hugely aided my recovery.

That's just my story however. I'd be very interested to see how larger studies pan out.

I had a friend that smoked so much he ended up staring at a turned off TV. He also couldn't separate the tobacco leaves from the cannabis since the perception of color was gone. Pretty strong stuff.

Well, that is what my friend told me. ;)