Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
So true that the pain diminishes the high! That was true for my sister. So did the smoking help alleviate your abdominal pain? I'm guessing so. In what people report from the use of medicinal cannabis, at least for nausea, it doesn't take very much to treat their symptoms. And when it's used for pain, it can be very complementary with prescription painkillers, requiring people to use fewer of those, which, of course, are hard on the liver and cause other side effects.
It alleviated most of my pain. I would generally smoke, get pain relief and then read for as long as I had energy. Then I would go lay down and nap (pain also took a lot of energy from me)

I think medical experts need not to look so askance at the whole getting high aspect in the first place. So many of them want to develop pain medicines that don't muddle people's minds or they question medicinal cannabis because of the "stoned" factor. I personally think that when people are sick, whether terminally or not, there's plenty of justification for some muddling or stonedness. Part of why medicinal cannabis helped my sister was that it also helped alleviate the reality of what was happening to her because it did make her high. This opinion goes against much of mainstream medical thinking, but I think being high is, in many cases for medical patients, a good, well indicated thing. Sometimes cannabis intoxication, as they officially term it, is perfectly acceptable. Like when you have a dreadful disease.
While I was ill I discovered intoxication was a good way to tell when I had JUST enough to remove the pain. If I felt a slight buzz coming on I knew it was time for me to lay down my volcano bag. This is an advantage you don't get with other drugs.

I have some friends that have POTS/Gastroparesis/MS/Crohns etc etc. A few of them get marinol and a number of other physicians really look down on them as if they are just fiending.

My friend with MS is particularly the worst case. Her nerve pain is so severe sometimes she breaks into seizure. I live in Texas also so cannabis is not legal. She was on Norco and had to take a large dose to get any sort of relief. They tried to force therapists down her throat for "addiction". It was sickening to see some of these doctors that should be treating her for MS.. trying to treat her for drug addiction.

Though honestly with lawsuits rampant I can't say I necessarily blame doctors for being so skeptical of patients, but let's at least be reasonable. I'm sure there are more sympathetic people like you in the medical field, but they seem to be far and few in between unfortunately.