Severe Chronic Post-traumatic Pain by Edwin Murray
I'm a 40 year old male recently divorced. Back in 1994 I was struck by a drunk driver in a car accident. My hip was torn from my spine at the sacral. It caused a lot of nerve damage and I live in chronic pain 24/7. I have been to several specialists and pain clinics through the years. I have been on everything from codeine to Percacet to Neurontin to Ultram to morphine to Fentanyl, all with little or no relief and all with side effects! I had become very depressed and suicidal. My doctor tried everything from Effexor to Paxil to Prozac, but again, little or no relief. I didn't eat or sleep. I would get an hour of napping here and there of napping. The physical pain was too much to bear, and the emotional pain was becoming just as bad. I alienated everyone around me. I just didn't want to live anymore. I lost close to 30 pounds and was withering away to nothing. The doctors told me that there was no more they could do to stop the pain. They just said that they could only try to make it as bearable as possible. That's when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had heard about marijuana being used for cancer patients in the relief of pain, so I decided to try it. I can't believe the difference now. I'm still taking Fentanyl through a patch, but I use marijuana for breakthrough pain. I roll one up in the morning and smoke about half of it. I feel so much better. It helps ease the pain and make it more tolerable, and it changes my mood to a more positive one. I smoke the other half in the late afternoon, and that gets me through the evening. I smoke a little bit more before bedtime and it helps me get more sleep than ever before. The only side effect is a dry mouth. I get hungry, but that’s a good thing. I'm able to eat again and have gained back some of the weight that I had lost. The only real problem is that I have to buy it outside the law. That makes it quite expensive and hard to obtain. I'm on SSI disability, and it’s hard to come up with the money. I just don't understand why the government makes this naturally grown plant illegal when it helps so many people. They make alcohol legal even though it kills millions of people every year. Maybe it's because they can control the booze industry and can't control a plant that anyone can grow!