How I found relief from back pain with medical cannabis

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Fibromyalgia patient, Freya reveals how cannabis medicines have helped her find relief from agonising back pain, where traditional medicines have failed.

One in three people in the UK will experience the agony of  back pain at some point in their life. 

The Work Foundation Report estimates that 12.5 percent of all days lost at work are due to back pain. 

It can be an absolutely miserable condition and often traditional medical approaches such as opioids and painkillers, steroid injections and surgery fail to bring satisfactory relief. They can actually make a patient’s situation worse.

Lockdown has seen a surge in chronic back pain due to hours spent crouched over laptops and lack of normal exercise. 

Cannabis medicines are gaining increasing interest as an effective and side-effect free treatment for this pain, when traditional methods have failed to help. 

Back Care UK, the National Back Pain Association, has been educating the public on ways to alleviate and help prevent back pain for over 50 years. 

The organisation, whose patron is HRH Prince of Wales, provides practical and emotional support to people living with back pain through education, information and advice. 

Back Care helps people who have back pain whether the cause is through injury, musculoskeletal disorders such as scoliosis, axial spa, or spina bifida or as a consequence  of another underlying health condition including multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease or cancer.

Back Care and Integro Medical Clinics who specialise in cannabis medicines, have joined forces to produce an informative and potentially life-changing event webinar that will be of interest to anyone suffering the misery of back pain or health care providers

This stand-alone webinar event on Tuesday 25 May will focus on the practical application of biomedical knowledge behind cannabis medicines and back pain.

The discussion will explore the potential benefits of the addition of cannabis medicines into a chronic pain management regime for this diverse patient group.

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The patient’s story

Freya is an active political feminist, working in IT. She is a fibromyalgia and a vulvodynia patient, who suffers the agony of chronic back pain and discovered help and relief in the form of cannabis medicines.

Can you describe your back pain and the limitations it puts on your normal life and any emotional psychological consequences it has upon you ?

My back pain stems from the base of my spine and goes into my legs too. It also can go into my neck which quite regularly goes into spasm. It’s the kind of deep uncomfortable pain that once it sets in, no position is comfortable and everything is affected. It kicks in very quickly when standing still so even queuing for the supermarket is just unbearable. It also kicks in if I’m in an uncomfortable chair – so eating dinner at a restaurant or even just sitting at my friend’s kitchen table is painful. 

Psychologically, it’s so hard to put into words but there is this feeling you get when you’re in pain, and you’re in company and can’t just go and lie down or take something to knock you out so you can try to sleep through it. 

It’s like a heavy ache in your heart as you smile, try to keep up with the conversation and not just withdraw into yourself and cry. You get snappy and irritated and may say something sharply without even realising. You run out of patience very quickly yet at the same time are thinking ‘keep smiling – just get through this and you can lie down soon’. 

It affects intimacy too. I’m in pain when I wake up and when I go to bed. My partner is wonderful and supportive but it doesn’t leave me feeling very sexy or very motivated to initiate intimacy. I don’t want him to feel rejected, but it’s hard not to when you are always balancing pain and energy levels and how you respond to people around you.

What traditional drugs have you tried and were there any unpleasant side effects? 

I had been on a cocktail of Tramadol, diazepam and codeine which had left me with terrible IBS, an addiction, and feeling dazed and confused a lot of the time. Nothing got rid of the pain either, they just helped you not to care.

When you tried cannabis medicines, why did they feel helpful to the pain you were experiencing?

Cannabis medicines manage to help me relax when I am in pain, which in turn helps the pain reduce as you are less tense and worried. It means I can sit and chat to people without being too ‘stoned’ on something like Tramadol and doesn’t cause any of the negative side effects like IBS. 

When I have tried tinctures and topicals they have given me pain relief without any of the ‘stoned’ effects so I can focus and work without issue. That’s probably the most important thing, to be able to focus and get my work done without making mistakes. It also helps with sleep. I get terrible nightmares and sleep paralysis when I am on tramadol , which I just never get with cannabis.

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If you have any questions in regards to your back pain you will have the opportunity to ask the experts on the night for their advice in the Q&A ‘s at the end. The healthcare professionals taking part in the event have years of experience between them in complex pain management and expertise in the treatment of back pain for a variety of conditions.

Panel:

Dr Basil Amahldi

Pain specialist at Integro Clinics and the London Spinal Clinic

Dr Brian Hammond

Chiropractor, Osteopath and Vice President of BackCare Charity

Dr Anthony Ordman

Hon clinical director of Integro Clinics, a private pain clinic that prescribes cannabis medicines and one of the UK’s most experienced specialists in the treatment of pain. For his contributions to Pain Medicine Dr Ordman was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 2005, and he is immediate past president of the Pain Medicine Section of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Date & Time: Tuesday 25 May 7pm-8.30pm register now

This webinar will be of interest to health care providers and anyone suffering from back pain whether it is a primary condition or a secondary symptom of a more complex pain condition such as MS, fibromyalgia or osteoarthritis. We look forward to seeing you!

For more information contact: www.integroclinics.com 

Contact BackCare at:  www.backcare.org.uk