![Amy Mellen - Reduced Chronic Pain From Traumatic Injury and Got Off 11 Meds with Marijuana Amy Mellen - Reduced Chronic Pain From Traumatic Injury and Got Off 11 Meds with Marijuana](/uploads/news-pictures/2-new-york-blog-post-image-20190514071728.png)
In 2006 Amy was in a rollover accident. Her wrist was almost severed from her arm and she hit her head. At first Amy was given morphine but it didn’t work. She was then prescribed Oxycontin and Percocet. She developed neuropathy and was given Neurontin, working her way up to a megadose of 3600 mg daily. Over time Amy was also prescribed methadone, dilaudid, Celexa, Cymbalta, Klonopin, Xanax, Lasix, metformin, gliipizide and insulin (the latter three for diabetes). She also took Lyrica for six months and gained 60 pounds in two months. She was put on Phenergan to deal with nausea from the meds. The Phenergan caused a permanent tic in her shoulder. Because of the sedation from all the meds Amy blacked out at the wheel and had another auto accident, almost killing herself and her daughter. In April 2017, Amy had to have emergency heart surgery due to plaque buildup as a result of all her meds. Amy believes her side effects from the medications would have been even worse if she wasn’t taking supplements to flush her liver and kidneys for the last five years she was on medication. Despite all the medication, Amy’s pain levels never went below a 6 or 7. She was declared disabled in 2009.
All of that began to change when Amy started using medical marijuana products. She began smoking cannabis in October 2014, that allowed her to cut out the first medication which was Neurontin, in about 6 months. Then in approximately February of 2015 she started using a cannabis topical on her hand, which provided pain relief within 10 minutes. In April of 2015 she began ingesting FECO (Full Extract Cannabis Oil) which contains both CBD and THC. That is where the real healing began. Within 2 months her type 2 diabetes was reversed, within 3 months she was off all the pain meds and muscle relaxers, within 6 months she got off Effexor and Klonopin and then in less than a year she had dropped over a hundred pounds. She has lost 205 lbs total. Using the oil enabled her to eventually get off all 11 of her medications and get back to work. She interviewed for a job on August 2nd 2015 and was hired on the spot and worked through until Christmas Eve 2015. Since then she has been doing coaching and advocacy about cannabis on her own.
Amy reports that the pain medications just alter your perception of pain, they don’t really take it away. Marijuana actually does take the pain away. Even with all the medication Annie was on, her pain levels never got below a 6 or 7 on a scale of 0 to 10. Now her pain levels are usually around a 4. She also reports that she is much more clearheaded.
Amy was living in Oregon, where medical marijuana is has been legal for a while, when she started using it for her pain. She recently moved to Maryland where the medical marijuana program just went live in April of 2017. Annie was the second medical marijuana patient to be certified in the state. The medical marijuana program in Maryland is much more restrictive than the program in Oregon and some of the products that Annie had come to rely on are not available in Maryland. Amy has learned to make her own. Amy reports that cannabis is a complex product and there is much trial and error before you get the optimum effects.
Amy does consultations on how to make your own cannabis products and is starting to work with marijuana dispensaries in Maryland. Thanks to medical marijuana, Amy has gotten her life back.
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