Have you tried gabapentin or Lyrica for the nerve pain?

Vaporize...

I take cymbalta which seems to help the leg pain and numbness. I've been on it for 6 weeks now and only take 1 lyrica but my Dr thinks the cymbalta alone will help the nerve pain and she doubled the dose today. So far so good but it doesn't really help the back pain and I take other meds for that. I'm not sure if medical marijuana works for nerve pain but I know it helps nausea and helps you relax. Good luck with your treatment. Take care. Charry

I hate to admit I inhaled, but I did(if you are old enough, you will get the reference ). I flew to visit my daughter in Florida last summer. As you can see from my signature, I have lots of problems., and lots of pain. I was miserable the first night. The second night, she gave me an inhaler.after about 4-5 hits, I was feeling better. I slept better that night than before or since, and was in much less pain the rest of the week, by very minimal use. I sure wanted to bring some home on the airplane, but I could just see the headlines......."61 year old arrested on plane for smuggeling pot " Didn't think that would go over very well with my job.

You should discuss it with your dr, but don't be afraid to ask. After all, all he can say is no! He isn't going to arrest you for asking about it, LOL. I would rather use a natural substance than synthetic medications any day. And I agree, your stomach problems are probably from the meds. Good luck in finding something that works.

Maggie

I hate to be overly rational, but if your doctor "isn't quick to give out any meds especially the strong ones that actually work" then why would you expect him to agree to give you medical marijuana, of all things?

If your PM doctor isn't willing to help you with something stronger, would you consider going to another? I too have a feeling that he may not go for the medical maryjane. Have you had a post op MRI to see what else may be going on to explain the pain? If something is up then I'm sure your doctor wouldn't mind adjusting or changing your meds.

Damaged nerves or dysfunctional nerves cause pain. Meds for this range from anti-inflammatories, to anti-convulsants to anti-depressants and even narcotics. Trying only one medication in one classification of drugs and then leaping to medical marijuana is quite a leap.

I would think discussing the type of injury you have and different types of medications available to treat it would go a long way towards educating yourself and possibly finding relief in the form of something a little less dramatic, a little easier to prescribe and far more easier to procure.

"C"

Thanks for all the input - I have tried different forms of medication - they all seem to be variations of Tramadol and don't really work but keep you awake all night - I definitly would use a vaporizor (they cost about $600.00) I will see what he says toady I just know what we are doing right now is not working and I am pretty sure that the pain is due to damaged nerve that is not going to get any better as I have not had any improvement since April - when I had my surgery the Surgeon said that the nerve was badly damaged.
Thanks again - I will keep you posted.
Tracy

It takes about a year for nerves to heal fully and recover to their baseline level of function, so 4 months post-op is barely out of the gate as far as recovery from nerve damage goes. Baby steps and lots of patience required...

I have the same problem with nerve pain. It goes down my left buttock, left leg and my left foot is constantly numb. I also feel like a big fat elephant is sitting on my left great toe. I have been told by both my NS and PM docs that it can take up to FIVE years for the nerve to calm down. My fusion was over a year ago!

I have been on Lyrica (helped alot but I started having serious vision problems so I was taken off of it). Now on Neurontin which causes me the same vision problems but I CANT get off these meds without severe nerve pain.

Narcotics dont usually help me with the nerve pain. The nerve blocks work sometimes.

I would say you still have options. Have you tried the epidural nerve blocks. My first one gave me relief for several months (way back before my surgeries)

Talk with your doctor and have him refer you to a Pain Management specialist. Hang in there...

You do not have to get it from him. I have had 3 recommendations and am a licsensed mmj card holder. Cannabis helps me not take too many oxies. I must take oxy, morphine and cannabis to control my "uncontrollable" pain from l5/s1 herniations. Along with neck herniations.

You will need to go to a THC clinic to get your recommendation. Bring all of your medical records.

Unfortunately this site doesn't have a sticky or forum to openly discuss medical cannabis as we can oxycodone, morphine, and fentanyl. cannabis never has and never will kill anybody.

I keep seeing the same questions but people still feel it's too taboo , if there was a forum where all questions have been answered one could find their info while remaining anonymous. Info that is educational and unbiased, and phone numbers and addresses of clinics for cannabis recommendations to "HELP" people control their illnesses. Believe it or not, 14 states have legalized medical cannabis and is now an acceptable form of medicating in those states, because the people voted and could see it really does help. Cannabis has never ever killed anyone, and never will.

I agree that medical marijuana is a topic that many people are uncomfortable discussing, however in this case I think the leap from 0-60 was a bit quick. Of course that's a personal opinion.

A referral to pain management is a good next step and it sounds like Tracy_Lynn's doc is acting in her best interest.

"C"

I'm not hanglandc, and I don't play her on TV -- but I agree with her opinion wholeheartedly on the 0-60 thing. Going from Tramadol ER to Medical Marijuana is about the same as going from baby aspirin to morphine. There's way too much room in between for either leap to make any sense at all.

I totally agree with Cath. There are no specific or sticky forums to discuss any particular medication. All of that is done by the various posters who bring up topics regarding different medicines.

This particular topic has been brought up in about a dozen different threads over the years. I agree that medical marijuana has it place in managing chronic pain for some individuals. The problem with almost 99% of these threads is that they become personal.
They become wars with those for and those against.
I am not blaming either side, because both sides get involved with that.
And that is the time I step in an shut down a thread.
I've done it many times before with marijuana threads as well as threads about oxycontin, physical therapy, various types of surgeries and more. Whenever a thread steps over the boundaries of being informative for all members, is when it becomes a candidate to being shut down.
Right now, this thread seems to be going without any problems, lets make sure it stays that way

And therein lies one major difference in approaches to pain medication/management.

The day I'm using my pain medication to achieve "happiness" is the day I will check myself into a facility and request a rapid detox. In my opinion, the purpose of pain medication is to reduce physical pain, not to alter sadness, anger, or any other emotional state.

JKDE, if you need to clarify a post, you really should do it in a follow-up post, not by editing the prior post after someone has responded to it. It's one thing to edit something minor like a spelling error, but it's entirely different when you remove something as pertinent to the conversation as your statement "Marijuana = happiness" which is now missing amongst quite a bit of rewording of your original post.

Ron, is there no setting on this forum software to place a note identifying edits after a certain amount of time, rather than just changing the little tiny date/time stamp of the post to reflect the most recent edit? I know the moderators always make a note when they edit a post, but moderators generally show a level of integrity that is apparently not found across the board.

I have been in constant pain for nearly three years. Everyone responds and interprets their pain differently. These signals of pain are translated in our emotional centre of the brain. I have tried nearly everything I can think of. To no avail.
Currently, all doctors I have spoken with agree pain meds will not help me with nerve pain. Neurontin sent me over the edge with hostility. That doesn't help.
So, relying on one's self is the nitty gritty.
As for relief, i've noticed my Delta nerves do calm down ( vibrations don't hurt as bad). And, C-nerves don't seem to build up enough to backfire with all the force you could expect ( stung instead of stabbed).
I'm no doc, but, I have studied! The only other thing I can think of is medicinal Belladonna.
Of coarse this could be fatal, and would only work on M2 and M3. Not good enough for the side-effects.
Forgive me, if not for the little relief I find herbally, I would probably click a suicide hyperlink.
Please take care.

Is that dealing with pain is easier to do, if I feel better in general. The good thing is, that there are many different medications that can help alter my perception of pain. Also diet, exercise and activity level go in to the mix.

The key is to work with the doc in order to achieve a good medicine regimen that allows the most daily functionality. I know Ron has posted many times about what drug cocktail works best for one is not necessarily the same for another. It takes patience on the part of the patient and the doc in order to come up with the correct blend.

So basically the jump from 0 to 60 should not be a jump at all, but a concerted effort on the part of the patient and the doc over an unspecified period of time until a therapeutic level is achieved and maintainable.

"C"

The simple fact that MMJ can not work, maybe it does for the poster? No matter how you look at it, it is still a drug.

I personally can not tolerate it at all. It gives me a screaming, hit myself in the head because it hurts soooo bad headache. I may have experimented with it's use a few years ago, it worked fine, then one day it did not go so great. I got the headache from hades and it was repeatable, though I did not try more that a few times afterwards. Used a couple of different sources as I had originally thought it was just a bad "sample", nope...

It need to be remembered that as with any other med it can just stop working or leave some nasty side effects.

I agree with Bionic to a point that posts should not be altered with out a note. However, it is nice to have the ability to remove hurtful or misstatements if needed. I have removed a couple of posts entirely when I have rethought whether they did good or harm. We are entitled to change our minds.

Bionic-Woman,
Yes, as Paul indicated in the previous post, the old software driving PunBB put a timestamp at the bottom of any post that was edited.
The software we use today does not provide the function in the vanilla package.
We had gathered member input regarding functions that were important and should be considered for production.
Many of those extras have been incorporated. It boils down to cost.
I do have to say, this has been the first time anyone has asked for such a feature in posts today.
It is important and all moderators follow this when any post is edited for update, we leave the reason and timestamp. Other than that, its only the originator user that can alter their own. And for the most part, what I have seen is what Paul describes as correcting typos.
Beyond that, I see that people will post later on in a thread if something they said was unclear or was inappropriate.

Well, personally I don't view the time stamp edit as a "security" thing because it doesn't stop a person from editing their post, nor does it say what was changed.

I guess my own personal solution will have to be to quote everything I respond to in the future, so that when someone decides to edit something they've posted -- that was most likely the absolute truth, but cast a negative light in their direction -- the actual comments will still be contained in my response.

JDKE, in my opinion, you're resorting to personal attacks about my name and what medications I use (or don't use) because I've called you out on some attitudes toward pain medication that are not healthy.

If you want to have a civil discussion about appropriate pain medication usage (even MMJ), then I'm game. Frankly, I doubt that's the case, and since I'm not interested in getting into some juvenile pissing match with you over my Bionic-ness, I'll go ahead and file your responses in the appropriate bin.

Instead of discussing the major topic of this thread, its becoming a battlezone.
I am closing this down before it becomes a war.