Anne is a registered nurse. For a time, nursing was her life. Unfortunately, this profession that she loves so much has slipped beyond her reach. In 2001, she became disabled.
Anne has a rare autoimmune disease, called Adult Onset Stills Disease. She’s one of five people in the state of North Carolina with that diagnoses.
Still’s disease is a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, characterized by high spiking fevers and transient rashes. It’s basically a very progressive form of Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Anne has a rare Autoimmune Disease
She also has degenerative joint disease in both knees and both hips, all requiring immediate replacement.
She’s been through two back surgeries and now has what’s considered a ?failed back?. She has a herniated disc at L34, L45 is bulging, and L5S1 is bone on bone.
Anne has Fibromyalgia. Once referred to as arthritis of connective tissue, Fibromyalgia is classified by the presence of chronic widespread pain and tactile allodynia.
Anne has replaced her prescriptions with Cannabis
Anne has Myofascial Pain Syndrome. Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS) is a painful musculoskeletal condition, a common cause of musculoskeletal pain. MPS is characterized by the development of Myofascial trigger points (TrPs) that are locally tender when active, and refer pain through specific patterns to other areas of the body.
Anne has Chronic Pain Syndrome. Chronic pain is defined as pain that persists longer than the temporal course of natural healing, associated with a particular type of injury or disease process.
She has been through chemotherapy to try to kill her extra white cells, to slow the illness? degenerative progression. It made her terribly ill and caused her hair to fall out.
She was continuously in pain. Her physician had her on a daily regiment of six class two narcotics, muscle relaxers, and sleeping pills.
Nothing that the physicians and specialists tried stopped the pain and progression of her disease. They told her that she would be in a wheelchair by the time she was 40.
Now at 38, she doesn’t know what life holds for her. All she can hope for is some measure of quality of life. She really wants to go back to work. That would give her fulfillment.
She’s up for a third spinal surgery at Duke University Hospital. She’s had six major surgeries in the last eight years. She’s praying that this time it’ll work; that it will help her start again.
Though her church background forbade her from using cannabis for any reason, when she was thirty-three years old, she tried it for the very first time when she suddenly lost her physician and her scripts stopped. In one fall swoop she was forced to come off OxyContin, Morphine Sulfate, Percocet, Dilantin, Valium, Flexural, Robaxin, and sleeping pills. all at one time.
Cannabis, though illegal, was the only medicine available. Without it she doesn’t think she would have survived the ordeal.
The first time that she dosed with cannabis, she felt that she was free again. It helped her with depression and elevated her mood. But most of all, it freed her from unmentionable pain.
Anne was physically devastated, as much from the pharmaceuticals as from her illnesses. She believes Cannabis can free her from both.
Modern science is confirming that Ann is correct when she says that Cannabis relieves many of her symptoms. Doctors and researchers listen to Professor Raphael Mechoulam, who first isolated THC in Israel in 1964, at a Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics, hosted by Patients Out of Time. In this video, Dr. Mechoulam explains the role of Cannabinoids and Cannabis as an anti-inflammatory agent – highly effective for the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis, as well as it’s neuroprotective properties.
Cannabinoid System in Neuroprotection, Raphael Mechoulam,PhD
With her condition properly managed with Cannabis, Anne truly believes that she could go back to work. If only the medical community did not discriminate against her medicine through random drug testing.
Now that she has found a holistic alternative to her harmful pharmaceuticals, she would like to have her healthcare supervised by one of her local pain management clinics, but all that she has applied to have refused to treat her because she uses cannabis.
She has done her research. With all that she has been through with conventional medicine, she insisted on being thorough. What she found was a wealth of medical evidence, all affirming that cannabis was the safest and most affective medicine available to treat her illnesses.
All she wants is some measure of quality to her life; to safely, legally, and sufficiently treat her illnesses. For her, Cannabis is what she needs.
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