marijuauna helps pain better than morphine?

Question

I am so tired of suffering. I am on the max narcotics for pain and pot works better. Why won't they think of something better? The morphine doesn't cut it anymore and neither does the methadone. I have over 12 chronic painful conditions. Help me please. Any ideas welcome.

Answer 1

As a recovering pothead I can tell you that yes, pot does help, but in the long run, it goes down the same road as your other failed pain medications. Eventually the body builds a resistance to almost any drug you use long term. It's not that they aren't making anything better, it's that anything you use long term is not going to be as effective as it was when you first started using it. I am so sorry for your condition man - my heart goes out to you. If it is at all possible, I think maybe you should look into maybe hypnosis or deep meditation. Just try it - it's better for you and your body than pumping yourself full of more drugs, don't you think?

I'll send you some healing energy!! Feel better!!

Answer 2

I am not sure of what your chronic pain conditions are however I do sympathize with you as I too have chronic pain, but I do not use morphine or methadone. All the narcotics that my physicians had me on made all the problems much worse, so I stopped all the meds myself and had some major withdrawal problems but I felt much better and have gradually added back what was needed to help and nothing so far has been narcotic. Again I don't know your situtation and I am sure that the pot relaxes you enough to get some rest which helps with the pain. That is why it works, the narcotics are downers and don't help with restful sleep, hence that is why they are no longer working. Sounds like you need to make some serious decisions about your health and your health care providers. I wish you the very best. God Bless!!

Answer 3

Well, the thing is morphine does not eliminate the pain. You are still peripherally aware of pain/discomfort, but you do not care. I had an auto accident and was pretty messed up and on a strong load of morphine around the clock for about a week. I could tell that my legs were still hurting, but I didn't register it as pain. I don't know how to describe it any better. I mean, when I was dosed, they could have told me they were getting ready to chop my legs off while I was awake and watching and I would have been "Okey, dokey" Since then I have become a nurse and cared for many terminal cancer patients that morphine did not help after a certain point because the pain was so tremendous. I have yet to see any pain medication take away the worst pain.

Answer 4

So far you have had allot of true comments and facts about your problem man and I would like to add something that everyone else is overlooking. As you said that your on the "max" dosage for your methadone's and morphine and the pain is still there. Well let me explain something. Doctors are aloud to prescribe any medication he wants to to help with any health problems but when it comes to highly addictive narcotics such as what you are taking. So therefore your doctor only has you convinced you maxed out because he cant give you more medication but keep the pain at a tolerable level. I am not a know it all but have many of friends that has died from what your on and many other friends addicted to them now. I feel for you and your pain and strongly recommend smoking the dank and forget about the pills man. Hope all gets better soon for ya and take care. later

Answer 5

Have you considered an intrathecal pump? They put a pump under your skin that delivers medication to the spine directly, so you get relief with a much smaller dose of medication, and you can still take oral meds for breakthrough pain. They can put Dilaudid or Numorphan in the pump, which are about 5-10 times more potent than Morphine. They'll put you in the hospital first for a trial run with a catheter in your spine to see if it works and figure out your dosage. If you want to use pot, I would suggest asking about Marinol, which works really well and doesn't make you high like smoking up does. Good luck.

Also... for the person that recommended SSRI's, depending on what narcotic medications a patient is on SSRI's can kill them. Taking certain narcotics, demerol for example, with SSRI's can lead to a condition called Seratonin Syndrome... basically, you cook your brain by taking them together.

Answer 6

There is no ceiling for opioids so being on "the max" dose isn't true. If you still have pain, the dose can be increased. It's *very* possible that you're undermedicated and your doctor just isn't comfortable prescribing the amount of medication you need.

Pain is different in each person and each person responds differently to pain. Also, different types of pain factor in to the equation too.

Until a patient achieves pain relief there is no such thing as "too much" morphine or other opioids.

Pain experts agree that there is no "theoretical upper limit" for opioid dosages for pain relief. The upper limit is "what works." It is important not to assume that high dosages or a large number of prescribed pills means that the patient is "an addict." Of course, the doctor must monitor to make sure that the dose is appropriate for that patient.

Pain researchers and informed clinicians now agree that morphine, properly prescribed, does not depress respiration and kill opioid-tolerant patients. Pain is a powerful antagonist to respiratory depression. (Think, for example of how your heart beats faster and you breathe more quickly when you're in serious pain.) The American Pain Society and the American Academy of Pain Management have concluded in a consensus statement that "respiratory depression induced by opioids tends to be a short-lived phenomenon, generally occurs only in the opioid-naive patient, and is antagonized by pain. Therefore, withholding the appropriate use of opioids from a patient who is experiencing pain on the basis of respiratory concerns is unwarranted."

Answer 7

Narcotics block the nerves that transmit the pain signal to the brain. (at the spinal cord). Neither marijuana, nor its active ingredient THC, have ANY effect on the sensation of pain or its transmission. The receptors on the nerves that transmit pain have gotten too used to narcotics, so they don't work anymore. You're best bet is to back off of the narcotics and allow your pain receptors to resensitize to the medicine. Yeah, it sucks, and yeah, it will hurt, but the marijuana will not work for long. That, and it can exacerbate many chronic syndromes.

Don't stop or back off of your medications w/o talking with your doctor. Abruptly stopping them when you have a dependency and tolerance can be dangerous. Good luck. Sorry for the bad news.

Also, there are many very effective treatments for pain that do not contain narcotics. Your doc should refer to a pain specialist to explore the other therapies and meds.

Answer 8

Have you tried neurotin or topamax? Both are prescribed for nerve pain.

They do have hydromorphine which is a five times as more potent than morphine. And also the Fentanyl Patch which is 50-100 times as more powerful than morphine.

You should get your doctor to refer you to a pain clinic. Good luck.

Answer 9

Marijuana may help potentiate the pain meds as well as their side effects you are already taking but at normal doses are not very effective as pain relievers. Marijuana is also a depressant like alcohol, and also like narcotics. Long term heavy use will go a long way to greatly enhance depression and that fact alone will make it actually enhance the level of pain over time.

Where marijuana actually has a place in treatment is in the treatment of loss of appetite and somewhat as an anti-emetic. There is a pure pharmaceutical grade of THC by the name of Marinol ( DRONABINOL 2.5 MG) that is used to improve loss of appetite.

The loss of pain control is more a function of the narcotics chosen and length of use. People with chronic pain sometimes need to be taken in-house for narcotic withdrawal or do a rotation of medications. Because all narcotics, alcohol,marijuana are depressants, withdrawal should be done slowly and under supervision along with tranquilizers like Valium or Librium to supress the over -excitation of nerve transmission once these suppressants have been reduced or removed. to prevent seizures. (That what the D. T's (delirium tremins) are ... a low grade seizure that can actually worsen to generalized seizures.

Any drug used in excess the reaction in withdrawal is an excessive and opposite reaction of it's normal use. Methamphetamine is a stimulant , withdrawal causes prolonged sedation etc.

The narcotics will work as designed but you probably need to be hospitalized and go throu a reduction to allow the body to reset normal function again first. This is my best recommendation in order to restore resonable pain control with the narcotics.

There are other options to be used by themselves or in conjunction with narcotics at modified doses such as nerve blocks with lidocaine, localized surgical nerve severing, neuroleptics such as Neurontin,Topamax, Tegretol , Lyrica,SSRI's like Zoloft, Prozac, Effexor, Lexapro that stablize peripheral nerve firings as well as in the brain, and also by devices that use electrical stimulation to the skin to mask deeper pain. If you are not going to a pain clinic then you are missing out on reasonable pain control by those who know what they are doing rather than a general practitioner whos expertise may be more limited.

Answer 10

The reason that Marijuana helps better that anything else is because it is all natural. It relaxes the muscles naturally. Where morphine and such are synthetic and if taken for long periods of time can be fatal. If you are in pain and the prescribed meds are no longer working then I say use what works best for you!!!