for your review, Kat

I go through the state's website that lists not only dispensaries/doctors (weedmaps?). It leads you to only LEGAL dispensaries. I have been very fortunate with the person I am getting my "medication from." He is a fellow RSD'r, and like me, has had immune system deficiencies (hold that thought), multiple joint problems, and like me, a spine that makes the surgeons look for a diaper to wear should you sue them WHEN you get RSD.

I carefully watch how they are as I would a pharmacist at Rite Aid. And I ask questions. CBD content, THC %, have they used it, what is the strain? I educated myself from a number of sources, and I have my stoner videos, sure-it makes you goofy. But in Washington, I am allowed up to 15 plants, for "personal use?" And I have to have ID and also have my "prescription."

Right there, you best be in it to open a dispensary. Cuz 15 plants is one heck of a lot, and you likely will sell to recover the costs of growing. But no-I don't ever go into anything without becoming ready to test on it myself. But there are many areas of the body that have gotten so much better, and so many others, that I have taken a list of medications that did include yes, opiate painkillers. I took my last dose on Monday. I have had no problems. I have had an increase in pain but it doesn't take much when you hit the right strain: It's also good to know when you place your "donation, etc."

But the website (that locates doctors and dispnseries) also has other MMJ patients rate the dispensaries, etc, and ya get a 3-star average with 20 ratings and a 5 star with 15....my money is on 100% versus 60% and they ask about quality and if you got a good feeling from them.


I work with a PM doc who has been treating RSD and neurological oriented pain for 22 years-he's started three pain clinics, and it includes the one at the more local hospital.

The pain MEDICINE (as opposed to management) had been on his own, and kind of, by his own admission clueless as how to treat RSD, and kept me on to prescribe the nerve pain meds: at one point, I was on FOUR anticonvulants: Tegretol, which I stay on for TLE. But I was up to 3600mg/day of gabapentin, zonisamide, which OCCASSIONALLY I use for sleep..and to control the jabs which can set off the spasms anywhere in my body they used to prevent.

I met with my PM first, got his permission, then asked my shrink how he felt. Then the neurologist who initially made the diagnosis just to be thorough, and ALL of them, my PCP included as of today, and when I was in the hosital, I was straight up and straightforward. They ask what I do to manage the RSD, now that they've been backed into a corner because they dorked around for almost 15 months so that the RSD pain can get good and anchored, making my prognois, as my doc honestly put it, "Poor, as you haven't responded to nerve blocks." They say that that whopping 92 pound weight loss (why I sleep on the air mattress) and though I was somewhat overweight before the surgery, not by a lot, but their dietician said with my healthcare background, and that the level of pain I am in and that increases my caloric needs, if I even had an appetite, would be so much greater for tissue healing, SHE recommended a HVN tube feed RTC, and the moron hospitalist vetoed it, because the arrogant (ahem) doctor/hospitalist said "You give yourself infection." I not in kindergarten. I worked as an RN before my autoimmune disordered-body just said, "Nah, we're done."

My life, such as it is, has changed greatly. On May 2, 2011, my first RSD related medical visit, I had a BMI of 28.7. Embarassing. Wanna take a gander what I am at now, fifteen months after darn near skipping "stages" (if they were officially used, it guages roughly where I am at) 1 and 2, and by the time I got to and ACTUAL RSD specialist within reasonable vicinity of my home that the volunteers can take me to-I was over a year into having had the RSD symptoms? I have had 2 dieticians recommend a j-tube. Request denied. I would "give myself..." an infection. BS.

So-I smoke, and in an hour, I eat. It stays down and for the first time, my Nutrition Panel, since MMJ, has improved.

Incompetent medical care in the "powers that be" said otherwise: CRAZY and that I am "already a druggie." as I overheard the hospitalist saying on my most recent stop in hell (my name for the hospital)

I am not. I joke, talk and vent about it. But smoking the marijuana makes me no more an addict than a cancer patient taking it.

But as I said, I got the recommendations from my Pain Specialist (RSD), Pain Medicine doc would like to make it my PRN. Psychiatrist has halved my anxiety meds. All are in agreement. I don't hear any of them calling me a stoner, addict, trash, trouble. I had a cop in my house, as (I had just laid my new air mattress and rolled on top of the phone and accidentially called 911. Long story short, I am in my new apartment, newly having "gone green" and there are 3 cops in my house.

No one asked to see my card, my stash, nothing. I put my new air mattress on the bed on top of my phone, and sat on it, accidentialy dialed 911 and then left off the hook with no answer-had NO CLUE (I made the bed on top of the mattress-it took the COP about 10 minutes of shaking out my bedding once his bloodhound ears heard the dial tone come back on-bong is out, smoke in the air, and he did NOT ask when I offered to show him my green card and said No, you have medical issues-you're taller than i am and my nine year old probably outweighs you." The other officer also said "You are kinda on the skinnny side, so we fire When I was in the hospital, my discharge instructions listed it as part of my pain management but unfortunately no THC in the hospital. But I was out in 24 hours-a previous and nearly identical wound eight or nine years ago bought me four (3?) days in the hospital and I didn't even need to fill the oral antibiotics. And I can now say it is settling down the flare, etc. and so far I haven;t had to go sign up for a SGB (usually).

I don't smoke to get intoxicated-like those who take meds, which to a small degree, I do, I moderate it just as the MMJ. It deserves the respect my other meds to. I had to get a "prescription."

Now, if I grew the allotted 15 plants I am allowed to have for "personal use," in WA state-then I would say look at it being an addiction.

It is also expensive. That limits how much I get right there. Dad is not going to finance my pot "treatment."

But my ketamine? No problem, how much. In my state, by prescription, both are legal.

And you know which one offers way better relief for my RSD:

NSAID
imuno-booster
has helped with intractable dystonia and spasm in the muscles

And I have been straight-forward with each of my physicians (after approval from RSD/Pain Manageent Team, Pain ARNP, My NEW pain doc, psychiatrist, pain MEDICINE (script writer-is tickeled pink. They are all supportive as they watch the numbers of meds decrease, and things leveling off ore than before.

AM I CURED? NO I AM NOT. But it helps, and when I was beginning to worry friends with jokes about suicide when it was far from the truth only because after cutting ties with family things are less stressful in that area.

I just balance as best I can with the input of my RSD specialist, PM, and I really avoid the PCP she is a stick in the mud and reminds me of my mother.

I take 2-3 hits tops where it would have been up to 3-5 pills: 2 for pain, 3 tspn of Phenergan to keep it down.

I was not living. I was dying-slowly, painfully, and with a hole in my heart.

I can put a smile on my face, even after an excruciatingly painful shower-a 2-3 hour affair, take 2-3 hits, and sit on my patio. I am in pain. But I almost feel normal inside my head. I don't fall asleep at the computer, I don't feel hun over when I wake up. I sleep better.

I fought off an infection with less than 24 hours (thank GOD) in the hospital and in 2003, had the EXACT same one, and of about the same initial wound. That infection required four days in the hospital, IV and after Discharge, PO antibiotics. For the first time in my life, my crappy immune system that used to grab every nasty infection, and some very serious ones at that-it works well for many things-not just intractable pain, anxiety, sleep, etc.

That's taken 15 months of pills that clouded my head, made me cranky, irritable, forgetful (ok, MJ does too), and sometimes an outright B****. Pills that I don't take, I get wicked withdrawal. Now, I might scrounge for some cash, do something for someone on the computer to earn money. To be legal. And when I leave, I lock up ALL medications, the MMJ included.

All things in moderation-and if you find that you have to smoke 6oz/week (what I am allowed to have in my total possession, unless I am growing.

And with my weight at a BMI of 16.6? My FATHER (anyone remember?) gave me $50 to get some more he was so happy to see me eat food.

So if that makes me a rot gut, bottom barrel, scum-sucking drug addict-well, I understand I am in good company. There are thousands like me, and as for the reputable-I had some "medication" that turned out poorly, I called my dispensary up and told them I reacted, what it was, as that was what they'd based their recommendation on. Well, they are delivery only-they were at my home by supper, and gram for gram-it was replaced. Period. And they usually will throw together a package for you-I mean, "THC" comes in all forms-not just (or excluding) brownies.

But it was good!!! 29 pills of anticonvulsants, stuff for side effects, etc, GONE. I have a bit of ketamine spray, but like anything (MMJ, for example) not covered by my insurance, I balance on how bad
1. The tens of thousands in my state alone who BENEFIT from it (gloucoma?).

The list and debate can and will go on (albeit not for me) ad nauseum.

Goodnight. I sleep (albeit odd hours, I've leaned this way my whole life...so I am comfortably less depressed.

Take care.
JJ (RSD/CRPS as RX with MMJ)

And my dispensary is rock solid with 5 star review (honesty, quality, opinions, does staff know what they're talking about-same as with pharmacies, etc...)