Cannabis
Disclaimer:I’m no expert and I apologise if my explanation below contains flaws. It’s a basic description in the simplest way I know how.
The cannabis plant produces families of compounds that may fall into one of two categories:
* Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC): the psychoactive component that makes us high.
* Cannabidiol (CBD) – non psychoactive and the component used for medicinal purposes
The CBD is extracted from the plant and used to make CBD Oil which is used for medicinal purposes. CBD Oil may also contain THC but the ratio of THC to CBD is so small that patients experience the healing benefits of the CBD without getting high off the THC. I’m not going to get into the legality debate that is happening all over the US, but it is legal to possess and use CBD Oil in Georgia for a list of diseases, one of which is Multiple Sclerosis. It’s mostly been used to treat the pain associated with MS (in fact, I’ve always heard that smoking weed alleviates pain), but has also found to help with spasticity. Enter Stacey …
My Experience
I’ve been taking a small amount 3 times a day for the past couple months or so. As I mentioned above, it’s most commonly known for alleviating pain but it has also has shown to help with spasticity in MS patients. I was glad to see that because I have no pain (knock on wood), but my left side is spactic – always stiff, difficult to move at times etc., so I was eager to start and to see what my experience would be. I’m currently on a muscle relaxant (baclofen that is mentioned in the video) to help with the spasticity. Years ago, I was actually taking 2 muscle relaxants – if you’ve been reading my blog all along u might recall a pill I referred to as my sleepy pill, well that was one along with the Baclofen. I believe that after my first round of Lemtrada, I stopped taking the sleepy pill because I found the spasticity was less severe. I continued taking Baclofen and still do to this day. At one point in the past I was actually taking it 4 times a day but, also after Lemtrada, I went down to 3. Now remember that everything with this oil is somewhat experimental (for me) so everything’s been trial and error.
Soon after I started ingesting the oil (I put a couple of drops under my tongue), I noticed that my steps seemed more fluid – more natural if u will. I also thought that they appeared stronger. Of course I couldn’t help but think it was all in my head, but J was here in January and he saw it too (the last time he’d seen me was in May). Hmmmmm. A few weeks after, I dropped a dose of the Baclofen so I was just taking one in the morning and one before I went to bed. Okay, that was fine but I knew that the rhell test would be if I could stop either the morning or night time dose. I’ve mentioned here before that when I don’t take my morning dose, I definitely feel the effects of not taking it. My left leg feels like there are 500lb weights attached to it and I just kinda pull it along where I need to go because of how stiff it gets. Similarly, when I don’t take the night dose, my movements are quite “robot like” when I wake up. I was afraid to stop either dose, because moving around how I just described is no fun, but I knew that I had to…and well, I eh go lie I really wanted to, just to see what would happen. 2 Mondays ago, I took the plunge, didn’t take the morning dose and braced myself for what might have come. Well. I haven’t restarted that morning dose and I’m just fine 🙂 No 500lb weights, no unbelievable stiffness and continued fluid movements. I’m really happy about that and I feel confident saying now that “it’s not all in my head”.
I haven’t told Gilbert that I started taking it and decreased my Baclofen doses yet although he knew that I’d been thinking about it. Not sure when my next appointment is but I’ll tell him then. Anyhoo, so time will tell where I go with this long term…we’ll see what happens.