Patient Stories

A Patient’s Road to Pain Relief

By Ellen Lenox Smith (from her article “Why you should consider cannabis“) Rhode Island: Why — at the age of 57 — would one ever consider turning to medical cannabis? I wondered the same thing after being sent to a pain doctor just before another surgery in 2006. After reviewing my records and seeing that I was unresponsive to pain medication, the doctor clearly had no idea what to suggest, except trying medical cannabis. I was born with Ehlers Danlos syndrome and later also added sarcoidosis to my life. I was living with chronic pain that was preventing me from sleeping, thinking straight and functioning. From birth, I had one issue after another reacting to medications. And after 22 surgeries, you can imagine the horror of all I had to endure and the added pain of never knowing the proper relief my body could have from pain medication. Eventually, a DNA …