My Experience Treating Psoriatic Arthritis With Medical Marijuana

Around 4 or 5 years ago, my daughter took notice of the number of pills I took on a daily basis.

There were two muscle relaxers, two for pain that I took on a daily basis. There was also the opioid I took once or twice a month when the pain was so bad I could barely stand up. Having issues herself, she was using medical marijuana and mentioned that I should try it. I should also mention that she is really into natural healing.

My response "Yeah, yeah, I used to get high." She mentioned it a couple of other times as its really helping her and I continued to discount it.

The overbearing pain of psoriatic arthritis

At the end of 2017. my pain was so bad and I took a Tramadol. It did nothing. No relief at all. I decided to reference Dr. Google for some information. I usually like to read up on things before I call my doctors. I was really in so much pain that I researching to see if it was possible to take two.

What I saw scared the crap out of me. It said I could take two but to NOT take more than four within 24 hours as it would cause death. Looking at my medicine bottle, it said to take one every 6 hours as needed. Yes, that is 4.

What if I made a mistake? It really started bothering me. Still being in massive pain I did take a second and it did nothing but get me high. My back still felt like someone stuck a knife in it twisted it a few times and it was still there. Herniated disks are no fun.

The decision to try medical marijuana

I started thinking about what my daughter had said. I spoke to her again about medical marijuana. In two months I have an appointment with my neurologist, who manages my migraines and is watching my aneurysm, and now he prescribes medical marijuana.

When I finally saw him in early March 2018, I asked him about it. He was happy to certify me as I had been taking opioids for my chronic pain. Once certified in the state of New York, you need a medical card from the state. It was delivered about a week later, I made an appointment at the dispensary and went in.

The appointment is a consultation where the pharmacist asks questions and then offers an opinion as to what they think would help the most. Since I can't sleep because of the pain, we went with high THC capsules. Capsules, like edibles, take between 60 and 120 minutes to kick in and then can last 6-8 hours.

Here they also offered a breath spray type thing and vape pens. Both of these take effect quickly. Seriously only a couple of minutes, so she recommended that I take the vape and the capsule.

Improvements since trying medical marijuana

Since then, I have found out that the CBD can replace the muscle relaxers and nerve pain drugs and the THC kills the intense pain, it helps with migraines. I am now off the other 6 pills and lost 30 pounds.

One very important thing is to listen to the pharmacist at the dispensary. If you choose to replace other meds get your doctors involved. When you add medical marijuana to your medicines talk to all your doctors, as just with any other medicine it could react with what your taking in a bad way.