Greetings all!

My mom suffers from migraine and a form of arthritis, and as a consquence she cannot work anymore. It's kind of complicated and I haven't got every detail down, but neither does her doctor. I believe the migraines are caused by a pinched nerve in the back of her neck, and it gets worse when this area gets infected from time to time. This happens when she strains her self too much. She also gets migraine when exposed to too much sunlight, so she's what I guess you'd call photosensitive (or something like that, you get the idea). She suffers from migraines on a weekly basis, and lately it's gotten worse. This is probably due to the fact that she's switched estrogen pills (due to menopause), and also she's upped the dose of blood pressure medicine. It's strange, but her doctor found that a low dose of blood pressure medicine helped on her headaches. He doesn't know why, but it works. Well , sort of anyway. It doesn't work very well, in my opinion, but every little thing helps. She's just one of those patients that are hard to diagnoze and treat I guess. Her doctor also tried acupuncture, but this didn't work at all, as she started to bleed at the pressure points. She's a freak, I tell you. And to think that half of my genetics are from her. No wonder I am like I am

I'm seriously considering asking her to consider trying some marijuana for her ailments, but this is a tough decision to make. She's worked as a nurse for several years, and has experience from working with doctors who have conducted research on troubled youth at psychic wards, including youth with cannabis addiction. This means she's full of government propaganda on cannabis, and basically believes that cannabis is a gateway drug and the start of the road to hell. It doesn't get better by the fact that she found my hashpipe when I was 18 and still living at my parents' house. This is a long time ago (12 years to be exact), but it's still a factor. And she's as law-abiding as they come, by the way.

So because of all this I reckon it will be hard to convince her to try smoking some dope. This is like opening Pandora's box, I tell you. On one hand it might help her a lot, and on the other hand it might turn ugly, as she's bound to start asking questions on me and my use of cannabis. Until now I've thought that ignorance is bliss, at least in this regard, as I really haven't seen any good coming from me telling her that I do indeed smoke cannabis. And seing as she's in a vulnerable position right now, I'd hate to make things even worse by adding more stress to the situation. And if she does try it, and it doesn't help, I've only made things worse, and I'd hate for that too happen. She's under a lot of stress now, and this also makes her migraines appear more often and hit harder.

I've thought about this for several years, really, and seing as things are worse than ever now, I reckon now might be the time to come forward with this. I have an older brother who doesn't smoke (but has done so from time to time in the past), and I've considered teaming up with him. This way, both her sons would be in on it, and I think it would be easier on her in every way. All I want is for her to try taking a puff or two when she feels the migraine coming on. I've read that it works wonders for some people, but others have little or no effect from it. This is a gamble, and I'm not sure if the stakes are too high to go through with this.

So what do you guys and gals think? Any advice is greatly appreciated

menopause can be a devil, and Norelhisterone as a tablet or coil could stop migraines dead, this is not widely known.

she needs to see pain management and or a neurologist and ask if they support the use of cannabinoids for the arthritis and or impingement.

its a difficult scenario' as her present medication is not known.

maybe try baking the weed rather than saying go smoke this fatty in the garden

im sure you will know what way the situation is going after the question is popped.

good luck and i hope everything is well

I cannot comment on the Migraine side of things, but I could perhaps offer some advice on the arthritis side. I have been a sufferer of Ankylosine Spondylitus (a form of arthritis) for around 14 years and been an on off smoker during that time and longer. For me the weed does offer only a slight help towards pain relief and not as wholly fantastic as some would have us believe. I think though, that that is just down to the individual and she may find it a great relief herself. Most of the time I think I forget the pain when stoned rather than it being an absolute influence on my pain...........But (there's always a but isn't there)..........

I wouldn't offer the same to my mum if it was me. I get the feeling your mum would be horrified if you offered her some even with your brothers help. She seems a really morally nice person and I think this would add to her 'problems' if she thought you were involved with 'drugs'. I know if I mentioned this to my mum, she would automatically think the worst , like you said the gateway to hell. By problems I mean that she may 'worry' even more about her son than she does already....let's not forget our mums constantly worry about us. If she doesn't smoke either that might be an extra hurdle to get over too.

all the best to your mum though, hope she can find some pain relief soon

something piched in her neck,headaches,uptight and stressed because of it?
Id be surprised to hear you havn't,but has she seen a good chiropracter?

Thank you all for your answers I'll clarify some of the details for you.



Her condition started several years before menopause, it's just recently that it's gotten worse. Her regular doctor works part time at a pain management clinic, so I would believe he's quite knowledgeable as far as pain management is concerned. Medicinal use of cannabis is more or less taboo here in Norway, or at least that's my impression. It is possible to get a prescription for Sativex, but getting a hold of it is difficult as not many pharmacies have it. I should mention that it's barely a handful of people in the whole of Norway that has prescriptions for Sativex. Information on the subject is hard to come by, and it seems that it's more or less something authorities rather would people not know about it.

I can add that she was (wrongly) diagnosed with fibromyalgia, although this diagnosis has been sort of taken back, as her symptoms don't really match those of fibromyalgia, even though there are several similarities. So basically there is no specific diagnosis for her condition. All I know is that it isn't good, and I would do anything to make her feel better.



I'm afraid it's more complicated than that. She's had an operation in her lower back in order to "stiff it ip" due to some of the disks being worn out as a result of a slightly uneven back and overexertion over the years (sorry I don't have the right words for this, I don't know the exact terms in english). This back problem also affects her neck, where this nerve is in a pinch. According to her doctor there's not a whole lot they can do about it. They've more or less exhausted the possibilities, and have settled for using the blood pressure medicine, even though they're not sure why that works at all.



Thank you for your words, percy I'm not going to offer her a spliff or anything like that, as that would surely raise hell. I was more thinking along the lines of suggesting if she's ever considered trying cannabis as medicine for her migraines and arthritis. There's been a few articles on the matter in norwegian medical journals and the norwegian equivalent of Science magazine, so I might use these. Seing as there's not many alternatives left (if any at all), I reckon she's got nothing to loose. I'm still torn on the matter, and haven't decided what to do yet. I'm leaning towards doing nothing, because like percy said, mothers do indeed worry about their offspring, and I would hate to cause even more worries.

Again, thank you all for your words

I suffer from osteoarthritis and impingement in my hips...

I hate being without canna....

As far as I can tell, it has no analgesic effects....I use codeine, ibuprofen, and paracetemol for pain killing...

BUT, I sleep a lot better with canna, and don't wake up in pain at night...

Without canna I have restless sleep and wake up regularly in pain....

My GP and consultant are aware of this, and don't have a problem....

I do think your ma should consult medical advice first.....

Hope she gets some decent help, and some respite from her pains...sorry such a short reply.

Monk...x

You are most welcome bob. perhaps you may try some other herbal remedies, maybe looking at some of the chinese medicinal remedies rather than going down the cannabis route, just a thought. It might be worth a shot

For my arthritis I am doing once weekly injections of Enbrel........which are an absolute lifesaver and have improved my situation to the point I feel like a totally new man. Check it out on the web, people are saying the most fantastic things about it and they are correct it's a wonderdrug for some arthritis sufferers.

all the best

All im saying is after ten years of being given a cocktail of meds I would'nt take,trips to a few Nhs approved physio of one sort or the other and finally pretty much being told that other than to keep taking the pills that dont work there is nothing we can do for your inexplicable twelve year migrain,my missus met me and got sent to a chiropracter twice.This women put her hands on her neck and said you poor thing,and that was the end of that!
Opren worked for my Old Girls back twenty years ago,not much help there i fancy,but it probably aint her lower back giving her the headaches.

I quite agree. She has consulted her GP about this many times, as she's suffered from this for 7-8 years already. Not about cannabis, though, mind you. That hasn't been an option at all. It's just the last couple of months that things have taken a turn for the worse. It might be stress related, as the last few months have been unusually stressful. I won't go into details on that, but I'm afraid that this is indeed a factor. And seing as she's unable to work or anything, she has all the time in the world to worry about it.



I agree, percy, anything that might be of help is worth a shot She's been through the mill several times already, and as I said before, most alternatives that western medicine has to offer has been tried. Her doctor also specializes in chinese medicine (he's quite the doc, isn't he?), so she's already tried some of that with no luck. Like I said, acupuncture just made her bleed and swell up at the places where the needles are injected. The doc said he's never seen anything quite like it, so I gather she's a one-off case.

Also, much of the meds that she's used has several unpleasant side effects, and she's not able to use them for very long. In fact, she can't handle taking most of the meds. This is also a reason I think cannabis might help. At least I can't see it making things much worse, but with her you never know. She now uses meds with Sumatriptan for her migraines. Her arthritis isn't that bad, at least not yet, so it's the migraines that concern me the most. This week alone she's had four migraine attacks, and they do take their toll, each and one of them. Slowly, they grind her down. This can't go on for much longer, she won't be able to take it in the long run.

As far as getting help from her doc, I really can't see what more they can do for her. She's got an appointment with him in a couple of weeks, so I'm a bit anxious about what he'll say about the situation. She requested a head transplant last time I spoke with her. Can anyone make that happen? At least she hasn't lost her sense of humour, and that's a relief in it's own right

e2a:
Thanks for sharing, Toneblerone I wish it was that simple! Come to think of it, me mom has already tried chiropracty a couple of years ago. It just made things worse, actually, and unleashed a series of migraine attacks. I guess what works for someone doesn't necessarily work for others. Like I said, most alternatives has been tried and has not worked very well. I guess that head transplant doesn't look so bad after all

I have no migraines, but I do have spinal stenosis in both the cervical (neck) and lumbar (lower back) regions. Plus every disc in my neck is decayed and crumbling, so I get loads of arthritic as well as stenotic pains in the neck and head, especially round the occipital area. Nasty.
I can only underline what percy420 and mono have said. Their experience with cannabis mirrors mine.
Gonna track down those injections though, thanks percy420! My feet feel like they're full of flames or sherds of broken glass.

Hope your mum gets some relief Bob.

I think she should try for Sativex and also take some allopathic meds for pain relief, the combination seems to work very well in many.

She needs to get back to g.p and put this requisite to them.

Thank you for your help, guys and gals I will try to talk with me mom about treatment with Sativex, and see if I can't find some credible information on the subject. I reckon she'll feel more up to it if her GP is involved, and can get a regular prescription for it. Thing is, this all depends on how her GP feels about cannabis. The only way a person can get a prescription for Sativex in Norway is if that person's GP recommends treatment with Sativex. If not, you're screwed. And that's presuming you know about Sativex or the medicinal properties of cannabis, which not many people do. Also, it's a rather long and time consuming bureaucratic process. It's almost as if they'd rather not you know about it and try to do anything about it at all, which pisses me off really. I see no reason why it should be like this.

We'll see how it turns out. I'll let you know if anything good should happen. Fingers crossed!

if let her have a few tokes see how comfortable she feels ? may freak her out like it does some people
vapouriser maybe ? eating bud tends to be overpowering for novices

I hope you both do Arnie, and anyone that suffers from pain...

[Ramble alert!]

The last 'episode' (as I call them) I had, involved pain spreading to include my feet. Mostly in the sole of one foot and exacerbated by any weight on the balls of the feet. Still hurts some, despite a change in medication and softer (more expensive) soled-shoes, but it does now seem to have settled in quite nicely with the other pain... Doing it's fair share of chores around the house and trying to bring home a decent wage... In fact, it has settled so well I have decided to adopt it and give it my family name, which is certainly a step up from sitting staring at them desperately trying to get my brain to accept that they are not in fact hugely swollen and black and blue, but are still exactly the same size, and feet-shaped, as they ever were.. ( )
I was going to say about the medication though, that I've been using Pregabalin (or Lyrica) for neuropathic pain and it is helping some. Of course there's never any 'no pain', as I'm sure yourself and others know without me pointing it out, but any reduction is welcome.
I believe it's one of the head-bender drugs when used in bigger doses, but does have an affect on pain caused by pinched nerves at much lower doses than are used for people suffering mental illness. Well, for me at least.

So now I'm sitting here wondering why I'm babbling on about shit.... And it's because I'm in pain.
..... Which brings about the eternal question:. How much is too much?

Ok Ok, I know it's all relative and only the individual can decide for themself when enough's enough, but how does one.?
(Just read that again and it's not any kind of a cry for help, or notice of impending self-harm, just a bit of poor explaining.)
I, like many others in similar situations, an rapidly losing the ability to do stuff. Apart from the obvious 'no piggy-back rides, splashing and jumping' and having to scratch base-jumping and the Cresta Run off my list of things to do before I die, it brings with it huge frustrations caused by an inability to be 'as useful' as one once was.
Maybe that's it, the 'usefulness factor'. Cleaning the windows a few months ago, well one window if I'm honest, took three days or so to recover. Although I did do it inside and out. It's a joke sometimes, although not a very funny one.

Getting out of bed is a bitch nowadays. Resting always makes for stiffer joints and muscles and increased pain levels.
It's like waking up the day after being in a car crash, day after day after day..... Having to roll out of bed, not sit up and stand up like other folks... It's funny the things you miss most. I was tempted the other day to climb a tree, right to the very tippy-top, just as a last act of defiance and to prove to myself that I still have the bottle. I don't though. The fear of pain, should I fall, kept me firmly rooted to the ground. That and my innate fear of heights that is , but fear never used to stop me doing things.

And cannabis. Like you and Percy and thousands upon thousands of others, it helps in ways not easily explainable, but is very definitely no analgesic.
A mover of attention, maybe. An interrupter of thoughts, possibly. A sleight-of-hand shifter of the importance of pain on your consciousness for a fleeting moment, conceivably. An aside, perchance.
If pain gets a 'ten', then Cannabis relief gets a 'one' or a 'two' at most.... Which doesn't seem much, until you are without it, but sometimes a person is only that 'one' or 'two' away from calling it a day, getting blotto'd and wasting that entire day, or days.... And it's springtime. Not a moment to waste.
[Ramble alert. /end]

Top post nigfis man, you can ramble like that all day!
This is more than true:

I've always been an outdoors, active type. Now I sit here hitting keys nearly every fekkin day - "Frustartion" hardly even comes near a true description. Some days its more like boiling white hot rage in the soul. How dare this fekkin body let go like this?

Feet nig? Its goddamn lousy is that, is it Arthritis? My sympathies if so, same here. Bast'd fekkin disase .....

And getting out of bed of a morning? Takes a while these days. Recently I been getting nasty cramps in my calves and shins, really sharp and viscious through the night; makes getting outta bed quite a trick


Sorry Bob, nig and me seem to have taken a detour sideline, bring it on back on topic man .... and let us know the outcome.

It was a good read both of your posts, so quite alright by me, lads It It's kind of weird, but hearing you guys ramble actually made me feel a bit better. Ain't life weird? No offence intended, it just goes to show that there's actually a lot of people out there struggling with pains and aches and whatnot, and even though I have my share of problems with health as well, it's kind of relief that both of you are still such nice guys with a good spirit about you. I hope I'm like that when this body of mine is just about done for

Anywho, it's my birthday today , and I'm off to see me mom and the rest of the family right about now. I've called ahead and she's in good shape today, so it looks like it'll be a nice evening. And that is a birthday present in it's own right

And yes, I'll let you know what happens with the whole MJ-thing and me mom. It'll probably take some time, as I'm not about to rush into things needlessly, but rather sow a few seeds so to speak, breaking it gently.

And I'm off!

turn your mom on dude. fat one hitter. when she gets an aura of migraine to call you. you light the spliff and hand it to her and tell her to take a puff. you say, you will wait until she feels better. repeat as necessary. ad lib.
gen

I think the best thing you can do is show her proof that it will work. I have all the symptoms of MS but not the definitive, spots on the brain etc but all my symptoms point to it. I am experiencing pain like I have nver felt before and it stops me from doing a lot of what I love, I also like your mum suffered badly with migraines almost every other day. I then tried cannibis and the difference it makes it unbelievable. I am still restricted but to a degree I can function and the migraines happen maybe twice a month now. It's all about being able to relax and allow your body to completely rest. I would say do your research then sit down with her and give her all the information possible. I would also suggest speaking to a doctor, although they won't come out and say "yes start using it" but they won't tell you it doesn't work. I told all of my doctors and not once did they say stop doing it. Once they saw the results they couldn't say anything.
Talk to her and show her that it will help. Maybe suggest cooking with t in a brownie, cookie even cake.

I know it's a bit late, but I'll give you an update. Who knows, maybe someone will find this illuminating. Things have taken an interesting turn, though it's not really related to medicinal cannabis. Allow me to explain: I suffer from coeliac disease, which means I have to have a strictly gluten free diet. I was diagnosed with this about 2 years ago. No one else in my family has the same diagnosis or similar problems. My mom had one of those coeliac disease blood tests done about a year ago, but it came out negative.

Anyhoo, before the period of constant migraines, her doc lowered the dose of estrogen that she's used to help with menopause. After adding 2 and 2, they decided to up her dosage again, and lo and behold the migraine got better. Still not good, though, and still a weekly affair, but much much better than every day. Hoorah! And now here's where things get interesting: A couple of months ago she was at a birthday party and had some cake consisting mainly of wheat flour (and sugar and cream and all that crap), and got really sick the next couple of days. This was indeed suspicious, so she decided to drop gluten from her diet for a few weeks. And lo and behold, the migraines all but disappeared more or less over night, and she's had only one migraine attack for the last two months. This is amazing! I'm pleased that instead of trying to alleviate symptoms, it seems that we've gotten to the core of the matter. There's still an issue with nerves in her neck, but going from migraines every day to every week to every other month is good progress by anyone's standards

I know this is not the proper procedure for diagnozing coeliac disease, but you have to understand that diagnozing it is a time-consuming and draining affair, as you have to eat food with gluten for at least two or three months before doing any tests. In her state, that would drain her energy, and then there's the matter of enjoying summertime when it's still here. A little medicine in it's own right, sunshine and all And besides, there's the waiting period for a gastroscopy. I had to wait for over half a year before I had that one myself, so you walk around feeling like shit because you have to eat poison every day. Not a pleasant affair, I can tell you that.

So to anyone who might be suffering from symptoms that you can't fully explain, get yourself tested for coeliac disease. It's thought that it's massively underdiagnosed, as it's hard to diagnose and symptoms vary wildly from person to person. Just thought I'd let you know

^ interesting, have inheritated my old dears nasty IBS, she has a intolerance to lots of differant ingrediants as well

currently undiagnosed but i have been diagnosed with cluster headaches, form of migrane etc etc but could be linked never know....how do you go about getting tested bobly ?