Unless you or someone you know has dealt with chronic pain, you may not have a great understanding of just how debilitating it can be. Only within the last few decades has the medical community begun to take chronic pain seriously. The problem with chronic pain is that it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what is causing it or where the pain is stemming from. What this means is that some patients are not even believed when they report intense symptoms of pain over long periods of time.
Chronic pain is one of the many conditions that can be treated with medical marijuana, and I think that it is important to bring some attention to chronic pain in this post. More specifically, I wanted to address some common myths that surround conditions of chronic pain and what they mean for the medical users that suffer from this type of diagnosis.
Living with chronic pain day in and day out can be hard enough, but things take a turn for the worse if you are regularly told that your pain is “all in your head”. Imagine telling someone that? I simply do not understand. Anyways, here are some common misconceptions about chronic pain and why you should not believe them.
The first myth about chronic pain is that it is imagined. This is one that is extremely frustrating, yet surprisingly common for people with a chronic pain diagnosis. Of the many reasons for this, the most prominent one is that chronic pain can be unpredictable. Some days are better than others, meaning that one day a patient might only experience mild pain symptoms, while other days the pain is so severe that they can’t make it into work. Whatever the case is, it is important to remember that people do not simply imagine chronic pain.
Just because the pain can be hard to describe and pinpoint does not mean that it is made up. Additionally, patients with a chronic pain diagnosis do not really control their pain - instead, it controls them. That is why so many patients turn to heavy painkillers and opioids to try and find some relief from their pain. However, medical marijuana has been a great resource and alternative treatment option for people that are in severe pain. Plus, who doesn’t love getting high? I know that I do! Anyways, back to talking about chronic pain.
The next misconception about chronic pain that I want to talk about is that medical marijuana users must be high in order to relieve their pain symptoms. Contrary to what I just said in the last paragraph, many medical marijuana users do not rely on cannabis simply to get high. IN fact, most chronic pain patients do not want to become impared when using cannabis to control their pain levels. In fact, the myth that every medical marijuana user just wants to get high is what the people that want to keep medical marijauna illegal will tell you, but it is just not true.
Ask anyone who regularly deals with chronic pain. Many medical marijuana patients are simply looking to make their pain more manageable, not trying to land themselves on a different planet. Most patients want to find that perfect dosage that allows them some relief from their pain without feeling high and dumbed down all the time. I’m all for getting high now and then, but I cannot imagine being high every day. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to function well.
The last myth that I want to talk about is that medical marijuana patients, specifically those with chronic pain, simply prefer to smoke cannabis. While smoking weed is a popular form of cannabis ingestion, it is by no means the only way.
