Therapeutic, non-recreational cannabis
February 13, 2011 9:40 AM   Subscribe

I need to know more about therapeutic use for marijuana, specifically for menstrual pain and vulvodynia. Snow flurries inside!

Background: I’m in my early 30s and am, obviously, female. I’ve been struggling with general vulvodynia and pelvic pain as well as severe menstrual cramps for many years and have tried numerous methods to address this (including but not limited to physical therapy, talk therapy, being on/off the pill [currently am off, no desire to go back on], sex therapy, various doctors, neurofeedback, etc).

Since nothing has helped, my current method for managing/coping with the pain is taking Advil. During my period when the cramps are the worst, I frequently will take 20 to 25 Advils per day. That can’t be good for me… so I’m seeking alternatives. I have no health insurance, and conventional medicine hasn’t helped me anyway. And I heard pot was good for pain. And probably good for the anxiety I have about all this stuff, too.

I really want to know more about how it would help, what it would feel like, when I should use it, how much should I use… etc. I smoked twice a few years ago, once with no effects, and once with maybe some mild effects (I just remember feeling sort of relaxed and kind of entrangled by a radio tower light – I was drinking too and attributed that to the alcohol). I don’t like smoke in general (especially not secondhand cigarette smoke) because I’m sensitive to its effects in my lungs and throat, but I am willing to try this if it would work, though maybe eating it would be better? However one goes about doing that?

I am a square. I have no idea how to operate a joint or use a pipe or any of that shit. (If you get a medical marijuana card, do they give you joints or a jar of herb or wtf?) I feel really lame and embarrassed to even think about trying. I genuinely have no interest in any recreational use, but when I’ve tried to get the information I’m looking for, I run into so much annoying huh-huh stoner crap that I just … run out of steam, I guess.

So, here’s what I want to know:

1. Is this going to help me?

2. How (very specifically) do I go about using it? If I want to use it for cramps, do I take it as soon as the pain begins or pre-emptively or what? How soon will I see effects? Should I not take my Advil when I try it? Should I be alone? How long will the effects last? Is it going to stink up my house?

3. (A less important question, but still interested to know) how will it help?

4. Any advice for getting over my hangups/reluctance to try?

Any information, resources, or words of wisdom you can share would be so appreciated. Thank you in advance so much. If you prefer not to post but can help, or if you need more details, please email SquareNeedsHelp@gmail.com.

Important disclaimer: Of course, this question is hypothetical. I am in no way planning to do anything illegal in the area where I live.
posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (25 answers total)
 
I frequently will take 20 to 25 Advils per day.

Regardless of which course of treatment you choose to pursue, please stop taking this much Advil. IANAD but excessive ibuprofen/aspirin use can cause stomach bleeding, for fuck's sake, and is in general very bad for your stomach lining.
posted by Lobster Garden at 9:46 AM on February 13, 2011 [10 favorites]


Sounds like you should investigate making some pot brownies or cookies. No smoke, no stink. You can google for recipes.

No idea if it will help, I don't consume pot-- although I did have friends in college who swore by it for cramps.

And yeah, stay away from that much advil. Eeek.

Good luck. Do you know if you have endometriosis?
posted by miss tea at 10:04 AM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Seconding Lobster Garden: You're taking too much Advil. It's really bad for your insides.

Now, onto the questions you've asked:

1. Cannabis may help, both with the pain and the anxiety. It may not actually dull the pain that much, but it will make you notice the pain less.

2. If you don't like smoke, don't smoke pot. What I mean to say is, there are other ways of ingesting it. There are vaporizers -- try to borrow a friend's first, as they're an investment. There are water pipes, or bongs, which are still smoking devices but which are much easier on your throat and lungs than smoking joints. If you decide to smoke a plain old pipe, buy one with an eye toward length: the longer the pipe, the less "rough" the smoke will be.

The effects of smoking cannabis kick in very quickly. A few seconds, maybe a few minutes. It's the fastest way to get the substance into your body. Those effects may last for up to two hours after smoking.

You can be alone, you can be with a trusted friend, it's all good. Weed won't hurt you, you can't overdose on it, and very few people get sick from it. If you do feel sick, just drink lots of fluids and rest for awhile. This is one of the reasons you might want someone around -- someone who's smoked before and knows the drill.

Your house will smell if you smoke cannabis. You might try limiting your smoking to one room. College kids living in dorms like to put rolled up towels under their doors to prevent the smell from spreading. Get an air freshener.

If you want to eat cannabis, that's a whole other story. It's pretty easy to make canna-butter that is too strong or too weak, and once you've used up a whole bunch of your herb on the butter, there's no turning back. The effects take longer to kick in -- about an hour. And they last longer. And they're usually much stronger. I would not recommend starting with eating pot, but moving to that after you've experimented a bit with the herb.

If you're in CA and can get a card that makes it semi-legal for you to use pot, ask the guy at the dispensary for advice about what's best for cramps and anxiety (you may get two different responses). They have all kinds of things at dispensaries, from lollipops to cookies to lip balm. And they probably have some recommendations about how to get the cannabis into your system.

3. Doug Benson would say, "It just makes everything more fun." You might want to watch Super High Me, which kind of gets into both the medical effects of cannabis and the politics surrounding it in a fun/funny way. The documentary may also answer a bunch of the questions you posed here.

Good luck. I also suffer from wicked evil (endometriosis-type) cramps, and anxiety, and I totally understand where you are coming from on this. Feel free to MeMail me with further questions, if you like.
posted by brina at 10:11 AM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Anecdata alert: I get cramps. They're usually pretty bad on the first two days of my period. Advil helps (but I take *maybe* 12 a day when it's bad). What helps me most is Advil + a few tokes. I try to do this as soon as I recognize the cramps kicking in, although if I'm anywhere but at home, obviously I go with Advil only.

Eating pot brownies/cookies etc. is not something I'd recommend for a n00b. It takes longer to absorb and is harder to titrate. You eat, say, half a cookie, don't feel anything for a while, eat the other half, and 45 minutes later you're waaaaay more stoned than you want to be, and it lasts much longer. Smoking it will make the effects kick in very quicky, so it's much easier to tell when you've ingested as much as you want, and not more.

If you use something like a vaporizer, you won't be releasing toxic smoke etc. because it doesn't burn the marijuana the way fire does. But they're not cheap.

Don't know where you are, but if you're in the Bay Area, SPARC has an excellent reputation. The folks there can advise you on the best methods of ingestion for your particular needs.

All that said, there's no way for anyone to say if this will work for you. As with any medication or substance, from aspirin to caffeine to heroin, different people will react differently
posted by rtha at 10:14 AM on February 13, 2011 [5 favorites]


I really want to know more about how it would help, what it would feel like, when I should use it, how much should I use… etc.

If you are fortunate enough to live in California these are things you can discuss with your doctor and the people at the dispensary. There are two main varieties of marijuana that have very different effects - indica is more of a body narcotic while sativa is more of a head-clearing stimulant. There are hybrids that fall somewhere between these two. If one doesn't work for you or you don't like how it feels, try different things (personally I use sativas 99% of the time, but keep some indica around for insomnia). There are also new varieties that are low in THC and high in CBD, which retain most of the medical benefits without the "high" (the one I see around the bay area a lot is called Harlequin).

If you don't like smoking you can use a vaporizer, which heats up the flowers enough to release the good stuff without burning it (also a vaporizer won't stink up your house). Cigarette smoke and marijuana smoke are very different though. If you don't like that you can try edibles, although these are hard to gauge dosage and have a delay before they kick in (it's easy to over do it). The benefit of smoking is that it the effects happen immediately, so you can easily tailor your own dosage to what works. This is one of the benefits of medical marijuana, it's not like taking a pill and waiting an hour to see what happens.

If you get a marijuana card they sell the medicine in all kinds of different forms. You can buy jars of loose flowers, pre-rolled joints, edibles, tinctures, lozenges, butter, and even things like weed infused chapstick.

For some non-stoner information try the dispensary websites. Many of the dispensaries also have classes that would answer all your questions. In San Francisco I like SPARC and in Oakland Harbor Side Health Center.
posted by bradbane at 10:14 AM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


If you're really not comfortable smoking, I think one of those vaporizer thingys would be your best bet, unless you can get a prescription for marinol tabs.

As to whether or not it will help you, that's something you need to discover for yourself, as weed is one of those things where the personal anecdotes of others can be very far removed from your own experiences.

Also, that much advil is a terrible idea! I used to do the same with motrin, until I discovered the singular joys of naproxen.
posted by elizardbits at 10:19 AM on February 13, 2011


Sent an email; if it gets lost, basically everything Brina said above is right on.

Doug Benson would say, "It just makes everything more fun."

Another opinion
posted by jtron at 10:25 AM on February 13, 2011


Have you tried legal narcotic painkillers? It's not clear to me from your question if you have. Not to make any comment on the effectiveness if marijuana, but you might want to explore other kinds of pain relief too. (And if getting medical marijuana is easier and cheaper for you than getting a prescription painkiller because of your insurance situation, well, that is an interesting commentary on our health care "system.")
posted by yarly at 10:26 AM on February 13, 2011


Depending on where you live you can apply for medical marijuana. In regard to dispensaries in Vancouver BC, you can buy it in any form. Cookies, hash, oil, etc.

If you aren't interested in smoking I strongly suggest using a vaporizer. It is more of a body high and may help your cramps. Smoking marijuana has also helped me with menstrual cramps and headaches.

I'd suggest vaporizing right when you start to feel discomfort..it will usually kick in within minutes. I'd recommend the Volcano vaporizer which up here in Canada will run around 700$. However, you can rent them for about 8$ a week if you have a medical marijuana card.

MeMail me if you have any questions!

Good luck!
posted by Bron-Y-Aur at 10:43 AM on February 13, 2011


I'm not a doctor. I'm also not a therapeautic marijuana user. My knowledge comes from reading threads on MeFi and being curious enough about marijuana vs alcohol (in a political sense) to follow various online groups who are trying to change legislation/laws. I also work in the field of harm reduction outreach (though mostly for injection drug users) so I have some knowledge about how to use marijuana. There are a lot of resources online that can answer your questions or give you more to consider.

1. Is this going to help me? - Maybe. One of the things that a lot of people don't seem to know is that there are different types of marijuana out there and many of them have different effects. Some give you the munchies, some make you sleepy, some are relaxing and some are more invigorating. Some make everything hilarious and.. you get the point. You can do some Google seaches to identify what types of pot might help with pain, specifically, and then see if it's possible to obtain that type wherever you live.If you're not growing it yourself, it can be hard to get the same type of weed every time from a dealer. I believe this is one of the main benefits of medical marijuana - it's a standard strain that you get each time - but I've heard that it's not as potent as what people are able to either grow themselves or buy on the street.

2. (a) How (very specifically) do I go about using it? Is it going to stink up my house? - There are a number of threads around here about how to use pot - smoking, eating, infusions, vaporizing. If you are most concerned with avoiding smoke and not having an odour in your home, your best options are going to be methods that don't involve smoke (eating and vaporizing). The former involves either some work to convert the pot into an edible format or more expense to purchase it in "butter" format. Buying a vaporizer is more expensive than just buying some rolling papers but they are easier on your lungs if you're going to be using it regularly (there are some threads around here on various vaporizers and how they work). I don't know if one of the methods is better than another for pain relief.

2. (b) If I want to use it for cramps, do I take it as soon as the pain begins or pre-emptively or what?- I can't answer this, either. I would imagine that since cramps aren't predictable, really, you'd be medicating when they started and not just walking around high all the time "just in case".

2. (c) How soon will I see effects? My understanding of pot is that smoking it leads to the fastest response for getting high (seconds after inhaling), vaporizing it would come in second (a few minutes), and ingesting it would be third (minutes to hours). The response time would depend on your metabolism, the strength of the weed, and your method of intake. How long will the effects last? The general idea seems to be that ingesting weed makes the effects last longer - up to several hours or a full day if it's strong. Vaporizing and smoking last a lot less - an hour or two. If you're new to using weed, you might find a several-hour-high to be a bit overwhelming.

2. (d) Should I not take my Advil when I try it? -I don't know. As a general substance use rule, it's considered a good idea to never mix anything - that said, I'd be really surprised if there were any contraindications between weed and advil. Two totally different types of drug.

2. (e) Should I be alone? - It doesn't matter whether you're alone, or with someone, when it comes to the physical effects of weed. That said, since pot can lead to some anxiety or paranoia for some people, I'd think it'd be better to be with someone than alone if you're a new user. That said, I'm a big chicken and won't even take my first dose of an antibiotic if I'm alone - because I worry about the potential side effects.

3. (A less important question, but still interested to know) how will it help? - I have no idea how pot works for pain. If I had to guess, I'd mutter something about, "receptors in the brain" or "magic!" and then wave my hands around a bit. No clue.

4. Any advice for getting over my hangups/reluctance to try? - Research. Google. Read other MeFi threads about weed. Talk to friends about it. You'll either overcome your so-called hangups OR you'll realize that it's not the right choice for you. Either way, educating yourself is the solution.
posted by VioletU at 10:47 AM on February 13, 2011


IANAD, but please please please please please stop taking so much Advil. The recommended adult dosage for Advil is 6 caps/day. Exceeding it by 400% raises your risk of developing very bad upper GI and renal problems. The GI stuff alone is estimated to cause 16,500 deaths/year in the US, and renal stuff could cause hypertension and fluid retention (edema).

Regarding your more specific questions about THC and menstrual pain/vulvodynia, I did some research on PubMed and came up with the following:

-No indexed research on THC/marijuana and vulvodynia
- One Irish study of 30 women in 1986 found that female marijuana smokers experiencing menstrual pain were slightly more likely to smoke marijuana
- A study of 50 individuals found that two of the respondents smoked marijuana to alleviate menstrual pain

I interpret these results to mean that while some women smoke pot to relieve menstrual pain, there is insufficient clinical evidence to suggest its popularity or effectiveness. There is no evidence at all relating to THC use and vulvodynia.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're in pain and that your various doctors haven't been able to help you out, but I can only suggest that you continue to seek counsel from qualified professionals and be very careful with your self-medication regimen in the mean time.
posted by The White Hat at 10:58 AM on February 13, 2011


The gold standard for medical cannabis information is Americans for Safe Access (also a kick-ass organization if you feel inspired to contribute, and no I don't work for them). Includes both a compilation of medical information and research and information on accessing medical cannabis if you live in a state where it is legal.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:01 AM on February 13, 2011 [3 favorites]


That much ibuprofen taken regularly risks liver toxicity in addition to other serious side effects already mentioned. Don't do it.

That said, NSAIDs like ibuprofen and naproxen do help some people with cramps when you take them preemptively. By the time you feel cramps, gulping 20 Advil is only doing you harm because the prostoglandins, the substance your body makes that causes the cramps, has already built up and started acting on the smooth muscle in your uterus. You need NSAIDs to block it, but that requires careful timing, not mega doses. You need your dose a few hours or more before you think your period is due and cramping will start.

I can not comment on the relative efficacy of pot but try reducing and modifying your dose of Advil before you move on to something more expensive and harder to obtain and accurately dose.
posted by slow graffiti at 11:09 AM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


While I am not a woman, I consume marijuana daily.
I use cannabis for my back and while it isn't like a good opiate in terms of killing pain it more or less causes me to ignore pain.
I primary smoke and occassionaly eat cannabis.
By the way your house wont smell if you smoke in it like cigarettes, the smoke disapaites rather quickly and I've only known one person who's house had a permanent smell due to the coupious ammounts smoked out over multiple years.
Vaping is awesome but a good vaporizer can cost north of $100.
As others have stated please don't take that many advils it certainly isn't good for you.
some of the questions you have can be answered via wiki for some basic info.
I would suggest you find someone who uses cannabis for some good info and I bet you know someone who does toke, many people are closet tokers and you'd be surprised how many people consume marijuana.
posted by handbanana at 11:11 AM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


In states that allow it, you will need a doctor's recommendation, referred to simply as a "medical rec" or just "rec".

To get the rec, you may need a prior prescription or evidence from your regular doctor that you have a treatable condition. The medical marijuana doctor will examine you and discuss the condition with you and may examine you. Recs in Southern California cost $50 to $100 for an initial visit. You can find a local doctor by looking in an alternative newspaper or Googling your locale with "medical marijuana doctor" or similar search terms. It will take 15 to 30 minutes at the doctor's office, and they will issue the rec right there if everything is in order.

Take the rec and run down to your local dispensary - if available in your area. Some states have medical marijuana laws on the books, but do not allow a dispensary system like we have in California. Your dispensary can help you select the medicine.

If you don't smoke, i highly recommend a vaporizer. They can run $80 to $300 or more, the $80 version is fine. You'll draw the vapor in thru a tube as if you were smoking, but the vapor is much less harsh than smoke. The vapor can make you cough if it is dense enough.

Many dispensaries don't deal in edibles for several reasons. One, it invokes the health code for food service. Two, in California, the State Attorney General's published opinion specifically mentions cannabis and hashish (concentrated cannabis) as being okay, leaving cannabis infused oil (for cooking) or edibles in legal purgatory. Nevetheless, properly prepared edibles in general are very effective.

Note that the active ingredients in cannabis are oil soluble only, hence the making of canna-butter and canna-oil for cooking edibles. Don't make it on your own unless you have knowledgeable help. Another thing to keep in mind is that edibles can have widely variable amounts of canna-oil in them, so the effects may vary.

Your local dispensary, if you have one, should be extremely helpful. Most of them are run by true devotees of the art and science of medical marijuana, and are very well informed.

As far as pricing goes, you don't need the most expensive product. There is a great deal of demand for high grade medical marijuana and the price can be three to four times that of lower grades. The active ingredient content of inexpensive marijuana should be fine. Marijuana is graded on appearance, density, color, and variety, which are indicators of quality of smoke - generally, lighter smoke with good flavor is considered good quality. Less expensive grades may have a denser, heavier smoke with strong flavors or little flavor, but for medical use, it's not that important. Heavier smokes have more resins or oils and mean you have to clean your equipment more often. Not a big deal.

As has been noted above, the two main varieties of marijuana are sativa and indica. Sativa will let you function during the day, though it makes some people's minds race. Indica is the classic "couch-lock" cannabis, a much better candidate for sedation, though I can't say from experience about pain control. There are also indica-sativa blended varieties that are somewhat balanced in their effects.

And that's too much Advil you are taking.
posted by Xoebe at 11:19 AM on February 13, 2011


Well, hopefully you're in a good medical marijuana state. California is aces for this but I can't comment on other states. I have yet to visit a club that was skeevy in California.

Will it help? You can only answer this by giving it a whirl. It is a great pain reliever but the pain relief dosage is also roughly where you'll end up high too. If being high is unbearable then this isn't going to be a good fit for you.

Marijuana can relieve anxiety too but it can also provoke paranoia. I've found that once I became aware of the paranoia I can simply watch for it, acknowledge the fears as silly, and they go away.

Consumption is a complicated topic and one that I've been investigating. I'll run down my findings here.

Smoking: Smoking has a lot to recommend it. Ingesting via the lungs is fast, peaking in mere minutes. This allows the user to accurately get the right dosage for whatever effect they want. It's by far the cheapest with little more than paper as the required material. It's also portable and comparably discreet. The downside is you'll be inhaling benzene, carbon monoxide, and other crap into your lungs. This probably increases your cancer risk and can lead to some unpleasant coughing fits while smoking. Smoking includes joints, cigarettes, pipes, water pipes, gravity bongs, etc. If you set the marijuana on fire, it is a smoking method.

Vaping: Vaporizers essentially bake the medicine (typically at around 320F) in a contained chamber. That makes most of the THC and other cannabinoids evaporate but does not burn the medicine. You then inhale the vapor. Vaporizers are terrific in a lot of ways. Like smoking, effects are nearly instant and controlling your dosage is easy. There's no horrible by products from combustion so the cancer risk is probably greatly reduced. The vapor is also much milder than smoke. One downside is the vapor is exceedingly dry (imagine inhaling from your oven) though that's fixable with a bubbler. The big downside for vaporizers is the cost and convenience. Vaporizers run from $100-$700 and you get what you pay for. They generally are big, wall powered desktop units that aren't even remotely portable. If you want to try vaping, the Magic Flight Launch Box is $99 and everyone seems to like them. I have an ioLite which is $200 but runs on butane instead of batteries. One more downside of vaping is that it isn't efficient. The marijuana won't give up all its medicine in a vaporizer. The left overs can be smoked (so you're back to smoking) or made into an edible. Vaporizer left overs are called ABV or AVB (already vaped bud/already been vaped).

Edibles (brownies, cookies, truffles, lollypops, etc): For marijuana to be orally active, it needs to be treated. The most comment treatment is to cook the marijuana in a fat, typically butter. This is why most edibles are fatty treats. Edibles are very powerful should be treated with extra care. The biggest downside to edibles is they can take a long time to work and last ages. On an empty stomach I feel effects at 30 minutes after consuming but won't peak until 90 minutes after consuming. This can be a big problem since I won't know if I've had too much or too little for a long time. If it's too little, I can take more but that second dose won't have an effect for another 30-90 minutes. Edibles last a long time too so if it is too much, you just have to lie down and wait. Also, edibles can make your BMs smell of weed. Watermelon can get you started in cooking if you can't find any edibles to buy. Tinctures are a special category of edible. This is an alcohol solution with a high dose of medice dissolved in it. You would put some drops in tea or water and drink it down. This has the same timeline as other edibles but has the nice property of not requiring you to eat fatty, sugary desserts.

My advice to a new patient is to try filtered cigarettes first. It's low cost and will let you figure out how much you want to take to get the effect you need. If you are sure you want to use the medicine regularly, invest in a nice vaporizer and learn to cook some edibles with the AVB. Lon lon milk is a great starter edible. If you do make lon-lon milk, look for soy milk creamer in Trader Joe's to increase the fat content of your soy milk.
posted by chairface at 12:16 PM on February 13, 2011 [1 favorite]


Anecdote:

A couple years ago I was suffering from severe (neuropathic) pain and leg cramps, and decided to try cannabis to see if it would give me at least some relief. I tried it out for about a week in a number of different ways (smoking, vaporizing, chai tea). About half of the time the pain was more tolerable, but the other half of the time the pain felt so much worse. Added to that, cannabis tends to make me rather nauseous, so I eventually decided it was doing me more harm than good.

So, YMMV, depending on your tolerance for cannabis in general. It's not a wonderdrug for everybody.
posted by HFSH at 12:18 PM on February 13, 2011


Don't make pot brownies. It's easy to ingest waaayyyy too much pot when you're eating it, even for potheads, let alone a n00b.

Go to a headshop and get a little glass pipe. If it irritates your lungs too much, get a bong so water/ice can filter the smoke to make it less irritating. Googling "how to use a bong" turns up a ton of results.
posted by J. Wilson at 12:34 PM on February 13, 2011


I really don't mean to pile on about the Advil because I know you know it's unhealthy, but recent experience compels me. My girlfriend has symptoms like yours, took more Advil every day than the daily maximum--much less than you, though--and after six weeks of that OD'ing she had a perforated stomach ulcer. It is extremely painful and you have to have emergency surgery to get it repaired, plus a regimen of pills afterward.

That said, I see the kind of discomfort she's in a lot of the time, so I completely understand the desire to pop Advils. I'm just saying, you should definitely explore other options quickly, and if you can, get a doctor to look at your stomach lining too.
posted by Beardman at 1:58 PM on February 13, 2011


For what it's worth, Erowid is an excellent resource for finding neutral factual information on drugs. Have a look around, there are reports and advice and things.
posted by tumples at 2:02 PM on February 13, 2011


One more bit of anecdata, specifically about sativas and indicas.

For me, the effects are extremely contextual. If I'm smoking because I'm crampy and feel awful and am planning a night on the couch in front of the TV, then either one will have me asleep on said couch in fairly short order.

If I'm hanging out with friends and we're all chatting and talking and laughing, then either one will make me wicked talkative and not sleepy.

Everyone's mileage may vary.
posted by rtha at 2:43 PM on February 13, 2011


I am one of apparently fairly few people out there who just doesn't get along with marijuana. I've only tried it a few times, because every time it gives me this horrid crawly feeling on my skin that I absolutely cannot *stand*, and I have to make myself go to sleep just to make it stop. I've been told that it works well for period cramps by many people, and I don't know anyone else who has this particular icky physiological reaction to it. But yeah, if it doesn't turn out to work for you, don't be completely shocked. Most people seem to like it, but it's possible that it will affect you differently.

Either way, much luck-- I used to get cramps so bad that I couldn't move, or would literally vomit from the pain. That seems to have diminished with time, thank heavens. But you might want to look into a prescription for a stronger painkiller if this doesn't work for you. The leftover lortabs I had from a car accident saved my ass once a month for a while.
posted by Because at 3:15 PM on February 13, 2011


- I get cannabis butter from the dispensary and make brownies with an organic box mix. Easy peasy.

- Like you, I was taking too much advil, but for back pain. After a little while with the pot brownies, I noticed I needed less and less. YMMV.

- In the beginning, I ate more than I needed and got WAAAAY high. Start with a sliver of brownie and wait an hour or two. But maybe the cannabis butter I buy is really strong? Anyway, go slow and you will get it right soon enough!

- I had endometriosis in my 20's and had a laporoscopy. You sound like you might have something like that - GET AN ULTRASOUND FROM YOUR DOCTOR.

- Nthing pain meds BEFORE cramps start. When I do this I have a cramp-free period. When I wait for the pain to take meds... FAIL.
posted by jbenben at 4:41 PM on February 13, 2011


In the past, I had terrible cramps--calling in sick 3 days a month cramps. I also had a near and dear caretaker for whom marijuana was the miracle cure.

This is going to sound strange, but pot (and hash oil and hash) never helped the pain during the pain. However, it did make me relax so I didn't tense up worrying about the pain. I also hated being out of control and feeling paranoid, so it wasn't something I pursued over the long term.

Hippy dippy books like Cunt claim taking painkillers one month causes a higher level of cramps the next. I don't believe it due to lack of, you know, science, but it still gives me reason to push through with as little painkiller as possible in a magical thinking sort of way. Now I'm only "oh god let me die" for a day rather than three as I've gotten older. (I also have the world's greatest vibrating heating pad and take about 4 showers or baths in a day when I'm crampy.)

If your chemistry is like mine (and strangely it sounds similar), it will only help chill you out so you can get through 'em, rather than make the pain go away. It will make everything smell like pot if you get very dry pot that makes a lot of smoke or a very "stinky" variety, but I'd try it with an open mind because, hell, no one should have to deal with cramps like that.

But seriously hit your doctor up for something else as well, because Advil and pot aren't the two only games in town.
posted by Gucky at 8:22 PM on February 13, 2011


There's no harm in trying weed. If you go to a head-shop to look for a small bong you can just ask the guy working in the store how to use it. They might think you're square, but so what -- they will explain it to you. Taking 2 or 3 hits might stink up your apartment for a half-hour or so until you open a window. The worst that could happen is you cough a lot for a few minutes and then get paranoid for an hour or two.
posted by creasy boy at 12:27 AM on February 14, 2011


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